Building a Bond with Patients is a Matter of Empathy

As much as empathy has always mattered in healthcare, it matters more now. Separate 2017 studies showed that patients and providers alike regarded a positive relationship between the parties as being essential to quality care. And empathy was central to that.

In fact, patients’ satisfaction is tied more strongly to that trait than any other. They want to feel they are being understood, that the physician has genuine regard for them. While it is not the only thing they expect of caregivers — knowledge, a willingness to take time and explain things are among the others — it is the most critical.

That concern was shared by those on the other side of the equation, as 80 percent of payers and 72 percent of providers responding to the second of the above surveys were of the opinion that the consumer is the top priority.

So what, exactly, is empathy? The Society for General Internal Medicine defines it as “the act of correctly acknowledging the emotional state of another without experiencing that state oneself.” Brene Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work, took it a step further by saying that it is “feeling with people,” and distinguished it from sympathy — which, while well-intentioned, is far more detached — by saying that people expressing empathy join others in their “sacred space”:

EMPATHY FUELS CONNECTION. SYMPATHY DRIVES DISCONNECTION. … RARELY CAN A RESPONSE MAKE SOMETHING BETTER. WHAT MAKES SOMETHING BETTER IS CONNECTION.

She went on to say that it is a matter of taking on the perspective of another person (while not judging) and recognizing emotion in others — making them understand that they are not alone as they face a difficult situation.

And certainly few situations are more challenging than those involving healthcare — even something as joyful as the birth of a child has its stresses — but it has been shown that empathy leads to better patient outcomes. It also leads to a decrease in medical errors and malpractice claims, as well as greater contentment on the part of the doctors.

Certainly I have seen all of that in my position as Medical Director at St. Luke’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I specialize in physiatry — i.e., the non-surgical treatment of various musculoskeletal disorders — and again and again the benefits of empathy have been made clear.

I see 30 to 35 patients a day, and our practice serves well over 150. They come to us with various concerns, of course, but all of them are vulnerable. All of them are at a very critical point in their lives. They need a smiling face or a kind word, a feeling that they are not going it alone.

For that reason, we do everything we can to maximize their experience. We make sure to answer their questions and alleviate their concerns. We go out of our way to ask if there’s something else we can do, some other goal they would like to meet. We also try to be proactive; one of my goals is to set up a YouTube channel geared toward patient education — one that will, for instance, give them advance notice about new treatment methods that might be available to them.

The payoff is in seeing them depart our facility, hale and hearty. The additional payoff might come well after they leave, when we receive thank-you notes and such from them. There is a certain gratification in knowing we have helped them negotiate a critical juncture in their lives.

While some in the healthcare field are naturally empathetic, there is also evidence that such a trait can be taught. Several years ago Dr. Helen Riess, director of the Empathy and Relational Science Program in the department of psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, developed empathy training for doctors. The idea was to help them discern patients’ nonverbal and facial cues, and develop appropriate responses.

The lessons involved showing video or photographic depictions of such cues, and the result was that doctors who went through such training were judged by patients to have become more attentive to their concerns than they had been previously.

The sad thing is, healthcare professionals can lose their empathy over time. It can happen as they are stretched to the breaking point during their years of training. (As one medical student wrote, “I miss the person that I was so very much.”) Moreover, such training is often content-centered, and not geared toward soft skills like communication and team-building.

Also contributing to the empathy dearth are the human inclination to become wrapped up in one’s own day-to-day affairs, the inability to devote as much time to another person as might be necessary and the hum-drum of everyday routines. The staffing shortages that plague many healthcare facilities are yet another big factor, as they leave healthcare professionals pressed for time.

But every attempt must be made to develop and maintain empathy, as it is the very foundation of effective care.

This article was originally posted on ClinicianToday.com

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