The primary mission of healthcare is to foster healing. However, through our experiences with our clients at Xavier Creative House, we are finding that healthcare is becoming less focused on the goal of wellness and more on external forces that stand in its way: regulations, bottom lines metrics and more. We believe that physicians and hospitals can reclaim this space by focusing on three key principles: proximity, mutuality and kindness.

Proximity: Getting Personal with Patients
A doctor comforting a patient in the hospital is very different than that same physician looking at the cost of a drug that can prolong her life. When decisions are made far from the bedside of a patient, they are less likely to help heal that person. Looking into the eyes of a sick or dying patient, listening to their concerns, even just holding their hand can do just as much good as looking at a chart on a computer. When hospitals build empathy into their healthcare plans they can expect better emotional and physical outcomes for their patients.

Mutuality: Sharing the Power with Patients
In matters of health, no one has all the answers. Mutuality requires that patients be viewed as the rightful owners of their medical records, and story, so they can participate in their own health journey. True healing happens when patients are given choices, feel safe and are guided by caring physicians.

Kindness: Fostering a Culture of Trust
Kindness works both ways.  It helps to heal the patient and gives the caregiver an appreciation for the value their relationship brings to others. The actions of Dr Jason K. Alexander remind us that kindness can be embedded into a protocol just as easy as safety measures. While in medical school, he along with four other classmates, created a project that paired medical students with patients who were dying alone. “We wanted to reach out to patients who had been shunned, the people others didn’t want to deal with,” Dr. Alexander explained. His visits with a terminally ill patient made a monumental difference evidenced by the tears rolling down her eyes on the first visit.  Dr. Alexander continued daily conversations for the few remaining months of her life.

Kindness from physicians and clinicians goes beyond comfort.  It allows patients to trust their own intuition and more  competently weigh the benefits and risks of various tests, procedures, and treatments. 

The Human Side of Healthcare
At Xavier Creative House, we pride ourselves on our attention to the human side of healthcare. We know healing requires more than just medication and technology, so we weave empathy into our marketing tactics for clients. It is all about factoring the patient’s emotional state in everything we do and in all of the brands we build.

Reference:
https://hbr.org/2019/05/putting-healing-back-at-the-center-of-health-care
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/health/03chen.html

Keywords: Healing, Healthcare, Empathy, Emotional Healing, Kindness, Trust, Mutuality, Sharing Power

Categories: Wellness,