A culture of compassion: How timeless principles of kindness and empathy become powerful tools for confronting today's most pressing healthcare challenges.

The role of compassion in healthcare is receiving increased attention as emerging research demonstrates how compassionate patient care can improve health outcomes and reduce workplace stress and burnout. To date, proposals to encourage empathy, kindness, and compassion in healthcare have focused primarily on training individual care providers. This article argues that increasing the awareness and skills of individuals is necessary but insufficient. Compassionate care becomes an organizational norm only when health leaders create and nurture a "culture of compassion" that actively supports, develops, and recognizes the role of compassion in day-to-day management and practice. The article profiles four organizations that have adopted compassionate healthcare as an explicit organizational priority and implemented practical measures for building and sustaining a culture of compassion. Common principles and practices are identified. These organizations demonstrate how compassion can lead directly to improved outcomes of primary importance to healthcare organizations, including quality and safety, patient experience, employee and physician engagement, and financial performance. They show how compassion can be a powerful yet often underappreciated tool for helping organizations successfully manage current challenges.

Leaders go first: Creating and sustaining a culture of high performance.

The culture of a healthcare organization plays a critically important role in determining whether strategic plans will be executed effectively and organizational goals will be achieved. A culture of high performance serves as a foundation that supports the implementation of healthcare strategies and enables health leaders to evaluate, select, optimize, and sustain a full portfolio of improvement initiatives linked directly to top priorities and mandates. This article argues that a culture of high performance should become an integral part of all strategic planning and, further, that a strong and explicit leadership commitment, beginning with the board and CEO and extending throughout all leadership levels, is required to implement a successful culture transformation. Proven methods for developing a culture of high performance in practice are described, addressing key areas such as alignment, accountability, standard behaviours and practices, leader development, discipline, and consistency.

High reliability in healthcare: creating the culture and mindset for patient safety.

Occurrences of patient harm in healthcare represent a significant burden, with serious implications for patients and families and for the capacity of health systems to manage patient access, flow, and wait times. Interest in the science of high reliability, developed originally in industries such as commercial airlines that have demonstrated exceptional safety records, is an emerging trend in healthcare with the potential to help organizations and systems achieve the ultimate goal of zero patient harm. This article argues that zero patient harm is a fundamental imperative, and that high-reliability science can help to accelerate and sustain progress toward this vital goal. Although the practices used in other industries are not readily transferable to healthcare, and no single proven model for High Reliability Organizations in healthcare is yet available, leading organizations are beginning to demonstrate effective healthcare-specific strategies. Experience from Studer Group's international network of partner organizations is used to illustrate and understand these early efforts. Studer Group's Evidence-Based LeadershipSM framework is applied in diverse healthcare settings to provide a foundation of culture transformation and change management to support high reliability. It offers an approach and resources for moving forward toward the goal of zero patient harm, with concurrent benefits related to the efficient use of our valuable healthcare resources.

La haute fiabilité en soins de santé: la création d'une culture et d'une mentalité favorisant la sécurité des patients.

Les préjudices que subissent les patients recevant des soins de santé représentent un fardeau considérable et peuvent avoir de graves répercussions sur les patients et les familles ainsi que sur la capacité des systèmes de santé de gérer l'accès des patients, leurs déplacements dans le système et les temps d'attente. L'intérêt pour la science de la haute fiabilité, mise au point à l'origine dans des secteurs comme l'aviation commerciale, qui ont un bilan exceptionnel en matière de sécurité, est une nouvelle tendance en soins de santé qui pourrait aider les organisations et les systèmes à atteindre le but ultime : zéro préjudice subi par les patients. Cet article fait valoir que zéro préjudice au patient est un impératif fondamental et que la science de la haute fiabilité peut aider à accélérer et à soutenir les progrès vers ce but vital. Bien que les pratiques utilisées dans d'autres secteurs ne soient pas facilement transférables aux soins de santé et qu'il n'existe pas encore un seul modèle éprouvé pour les organisations à haute fiabilité en santé, des organisations de premier plan commencent à faire la démonstration de stratégies efficaces propres aux soins de santé. L'expérience du réseau international d'organisations partenaires du groupe Studer est utilisée pour illustrer et comprendre ces premiers efforts. Le cadre Evidence-Based LeadershipSM (leadership fondé sur les données probantes) du groupe Studer est appliqué dans différents milieux de soins de santé pour transformer la culture et la gestion du changement visant à favoriser une haute fiabilité. Il propose une démarche et des ressources pour progresser vers le but zéro préjudice subi par les patients et tous les avantages liés à l'utilisation efficiente de nos précieuses ressources en soins de santé.

Back to the future: Patient experience and the link to quality, safety, and financial performance.

Improving patient experience has emerged as an important healthcare policy priority across Canada. Tools and systems for monitoring patient experience metrics are becoming increasingly refined and standardized, and the trend toward greater accountability for improvements that are sustainable and affordable is well underway. For many healthcare professionals, this represents a renewed focus on core patient needs and priorities, following decades during which structural and technological changes have dominated healthcare agendas. Improving patient experience in our contemporary healthcare environment presents major challenges-and opportunities-for Canadian health leaders. The experience of Studer Group partner organizations in Canada is relevant and instructive in this context. These organizations have adopted a model known as Evidence-Based Leadership (EBL) that enables and supports the alignment of all activities and behaviours toward specific organizational goals, including measurable patient experience improvements. This article reviews case studies of organizations that have adopted EBL. These organizations are demonstrating rapid progress in patient experience indicators while simultaneously making gains in critical areas such as clinical outcomes, safety, physician and staff engagement, and financial performance. Emerging evidence concerning the factors and processes that underlie these improvements is also discussed.

Retour vers le futur: l'expérience des patients et le lien avec la qualité, la sécurité et le rendement financier.

Au Canada, l'amélioration de l'expérience des patients est devenue une priorité des politiques de santé. Le perfectionnement et la normalisation des outils et systèmes pour surveiller les mesures de l'expérience des patients augmentent, tandis que la tendance vers une plus grande reddition de compte sur des améliorations durables et abordables se confirme. Pour de nombreux professionnels de la santé, ce phénomène fait foi d'un intérêt renouvelé pour les besoins et priorités fondamentaux des patients, après des décennies où les changements structurels et technologiques ont dominé les programmes de santé. Pour les leaders en santé canadiens, l'amélioration de l'expérience des patients comporte actuellement de grands défis et de belles possibilités. À cet égard, l'expérience des organisations partenaires du groupe Studer au Canada est à la fois pertinente et instructive. Ces organisations ont adopté un modèle, du nom de Evidence-Based Leadership (EBL, ou leadership fondé sur des données probantes), qui favorise et soutient l'harmonisation de l'ensemble des activités et des comportements, conformément à des objectifs organisationnels précis, y compris des améliorations mesurables de l'expérience des patients. Le présent article expose des études de cas d'organisations qui ont adopté l'EBL. Ces organisations ont réalisé des progrès rapides en matière d'indicateurs de l'expérience des patients, ainsi que dans des secteurs essentiels comme les résultats cliniques, la sécurité et le rendement financier. Les données émergentes sur les facteurs et processus qui sous-tendent ces améliorations sont également abordées.

The power of engagement: creating the culture that gets your staff aligned and invested.

The Canadian government officially recognizes the value of staff engagement in providing better healthcare. Evidence demonstrates that engagement is connected to improved financial outcomes as well as better patient safety and clinical outcomes. There is a need for health leaders to create organizational cultures that simultaneously result in higher rates of employee and physician engagement, better clinical care, and lower costs. This article highlights the research and experience gained on the benefits of engagement, explores Studer Group's approach to improving both engagement and quality, and shares the results achieved by the firm's Canadian partners. In addition, it describes some of the "building blocks" that, together, create the necessary cultures of engagement inside organizations.