Congratulations to Dale Ann Micalizzi and Marie Bismark on the publication of their article "The Heart of Health Care" in Pediatric Clinics of North America. An open access full text version is here. The abstract:
Behind the wall of silence in health care are the unanswered questions of parents whose children experienced harm at the hands of their caregivers. In an industry where information and communication are crucial to quality, parents’ voices often go unheard. Although that has begun slowly to change, providers could benefit from following the HEART model of service recovery, which includes hearing the concerns of patients and their families, empathizing with them, apologizing when care goes wrong, responding to parents’ concerns with openness, and thanking the patient and family.
Behind the wall of silence in health care are the unanswered questions of parents whose children experienced harm at the hands of their caregivers. In an industry where information and communication are crucial to quality, parents’ voices often go unheard. Although that has begun slowly to change, providers could benefit from following the HEART model of service recovery, which includes hearing the concerns of patients and their families, empathizing with them, apologizing when care goes wrong, responding to parents’ concerns with openness, and thanking the patient and family.
Thank you, Paul.
ReplyDeleteIt was an honor to be included as an author of this publication on patient safety and to share many of the stories of families who have lived through the agony of preventable harm to their children and the unnecessary silence that followed. Learning from, and listening to, those closest to the patient is imperative to safety and progress even though it's difficult to hear at times. Many parents have worked past the complications of grief and have become partners in improvement and many more are out there just waiting to be included and accepted.
One of my first presentations was for medical residents at Yale and after hearing our story, a student approached me with tears in his eyes and said, "Please tell us how to do it better." He was referring to diagnosis, disclosure, compassion and humanity.
So, that's what we've tried to do with this chapter. Hopefully, the readers will look deeper into the parents' and families' eyes and listen to their concerns as our knowledge can help healthcare do better.
Thanks to my forever friends Marie Bismark and Jean DerGurahian and to editors Dr. Max Coppes and Dr. Brian Jacobs for inviting us to contribute our perspectives on healthcare delivery as we were more than willing to help open eyes to our reality and to reveal what really matters.