Hospice Care: Hope and Meaning in Life Mediate Subjective Well-Being of Staff.

OBJECTIVES: Subjective well-being has been associated with decreased work burnout and elevated work engagement. We investigated the impact of hope and meaning in life on subjective well-being among workers in a hospice care setting. Comparison was made to health-care workers in a rehabilitation unit. METHODS: Thirty-five hospice care workers were surveyed and their responses compared with those of 36 rehabilitation workers. Survey instruments measuring hope, meaning in life, work engagement, and satisfaction with life were utilized. RESULTS: Individuals working in a hospice care center have significantly higher levels of work engagement than their counterparts in rehabilitation. For both groups, hope was significantly related to subjective well-being. For hospice care but not rehabilitation workers, meaning in life was also related to subjective well-being. Multivariate analysis showed that hope and meaning in life were independent factors predicting subjective well-being in hospice care workers. SIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS: Hospice care workers are highly engaged in their work despite the challenging nature of their work. What characterizes these workers is a level of subjective well-being that is related to both meaning in life and hope. Maintaining a high level of subjective well-being may be an important factor in preventing burnout among those working in hospice care settings.

[A PUBLIC HOSPITAL IN THE ERA OF 'INNOVATION-DRIVEN MEDICINE' - HUMAN EXCELLENCE AND EVOLVING TECHNOLOGY].

INTRODUCTION: Assaf Harofeh Medical Center is the fourth largest governmental hospital in Israel, with 900 beds, approximately 165,000 annual ER visits, and 23,000 operations. The Medical Center encourages human excellence and medical innovation, together with "patient centered" perspectives, providing optimal holistic service, alongside caring for the staff. The management concept of "participatory leadership" leads to multi-sectorial integration, conducting combined physician-nurse quality projects in all departments. As part of leading the field of quality and accreditation and the desire to share knowledge and experience, the School for Quality and Accreditation was established to train medical teams from the hospital and other medical centers. This issue presents articles that illuminate some of the work on our flourishing campus. The hospital serves a diverse population both demographically, and socio-economically. We feel responsibility for this population beyond the provision of medical care. The many centers of excellence in prominent clinical fields and the platform for providing continuous education for the medical staff to carry out basic and clinical research, are at the forefront for the future. Following demographic expansion of the population around the hospital, the task of providing optimal and equitable medical services is challenging. Over the next decade, the hospital is expected to be united with psychiatric and geriatric hospitals to create an integrated medical center.