Are you Receiving Compassionate Healthcare & Why That Matters?

Like many other things in life, you will know care with compassion when you see it or receive it, and sadly, you will know when it is a missing part of your health care experience. The difference speaks volumes! People often see healthcare providers at some of the most devastating and existential crises in their lives, when they are most vulnerable and frightened, as well as during routine health visits. When care is delivered with compassion you will see a provider who has the skills to treat and the heart to care. It is a component of what some may call bedside manner, but it is so much more, and it has such a strong impact on both good patient outcomes and healthcare worker satisfaction, as well as on the bottom lines of practices. Patients and their loved ones are a vital part of any patient care team, and they need to feel this at every step along the way. This requires us to broaden our sense of who a provider is, because it is so much more far-reaching than just our physicians and nurses, the most commonly thought of healthcare providers. Healthcare is a team endeavor where everyone on the team plays a different but vitally important role. Compassion should be an evident aspect of your care from your first look at a website, from your first call or visit to an office, and at every step along the way. Governor Lamont recognized the importance of this and declared July 10, 2024, to be The Patient is U Day in Connecticut, thus acknowledging the importance of compassion in healthcare services delivery. So, what constitutes compassionate healthcare?

At The Patient is U Foundation (www.tpiu.org) we work to instill compassion into the thinking, the practice, the skill sets, and the art of care at all levels of one's healthcare experience. We focus on community-based settings as opposed to in hospitals and healthcare facilities. The esteemed Schwartz Center for Compassionate Care has facility-based care thoroughly covered. We have considered them to be a guiding light for us in our domain.

We do this through interactions with the students of our many health care professions, with experienced practicing professionals, and through outreach to all the other essential people who are part of the healthcare system beyond physicians, APRNs, PAs, RNs, and therapists and specialists of all sorts. Consider all the people with whom you come in contact as you go through a healthcare visit, from the parking attendant, the receptionist, various office support staff in the exam rooms as well as in the front and back offices. At TPIU we recognize that compassionate care is a multidisciplinary process that leads from the top down. We work to educate people, including patients and family members about what compassionate care is, how to deliver it, what obstructs it, how to know if you are receiving it, and what to do if you are not.

Check out our website for the Governor's Proclamation and our news release. If you are a healthcare worker, join us in signing the TPIU Compassionate Care Pledge. Sign up for our newsletters/announcements, become a member or support our cause to expand compassionate health care, nominate a compassionate care provider for a TPIU Compassionate Care Provider award.

Dr. Stephanie Paulmeno, DNP, MS, RN, NHA, CPH, CCM, CDP Chairman of the Board: TPIU Old Greenwich, CT