Mending the healthcare system together all starts with trust. Being a patient in the hospital is one of the most vulnerable and scary experiences one might face. Not only are you feeling hurt or sick, but you are in a place where you don’t know the people around you. That’s why hospital organizations need to create a comfortable and safe space for people to heal. Doctors and nurses are some of the busiest people in the world, taking care of patients and doing admin work. But it’s important for them to go the extra mile, so that they can create a sense of trust between their patients. The more patients trust their doctors, the likelier they will trust the system as a whole, which will promote healing.
The little things make a difference in healthcare. It’s important for clinicians to make sure their patients are taken care of more than just physically. Making patients feel safe and showing compassion to them takes care of their mental well-being as well. Physical and mental health are closely tied together, and if a patient is feeling stressed and uncomfortable, the longer it will take their bodies to heal.
“You can never show your patients you care enough. As a clinician, you are seeing them in their most vulnerable state, so it’s important to go the extra mile for them. These can be simple things like painting someone’s fingernails to help them feel more like themselves, or reading a book to a child so they can have a little sense of normalcy while they are in the hospital,” says DoorSpace Co-Founder Brian White.
Research shows that meaningful connections between doctor and patient can influence medical outcomes. This means that healthcare organizations should invest in social training for clinicians, because healthcare goes beyond just physical care. Frontline workers deserve training to learn how to talk and connect with patients, because this is what creates a chain of trust. Creating a positive mindset for patients can help them get better, sooner.
It’s up to healthcare organizations to not only provide this training, but to realign its values to prioritize education instead of busy work. Far too often are clinicians spending their shifts doing paperwork and administrative tasks. Not only is this taking away from time they could have spent training and learning new things, but it is shifting their focus away from patient care. Clinicians’ priority is their patient, and healthcare leaders need to highlight this. Once executives prioritize patient recovery, doctors can spend more of their time connecting with patients on a deeper level.
“Taking care of patients does not always mean direct medical care, their mental and emotional well-being are also vital to their recovery. Taking a little time out of your day to spread a little love and happiness helps build meaningful connections and can help patients feel valued,” White says.
Creating a balance across the healthcare system is necessary to establish trust. There is no reason clinicians should be overworked and overlooking patients’ health. Heavy workloads and unsustainable schedules are putting strains on frontline workers, and this is creating a divide in doctor-patient relationships. Patients need to be the focus of the industry, because when they are taken care of they can have concrete trust that the system is working to help them heal. If they are being left on the backburner because their doctors are busy doing paperwork, how can you expect them to believe their health matters?
Shifting to a motto of true healthcare will establish some much-needed trust in the industry. Clinicians only have so much time in their shifts to create these meaningful connections, so it’s up to healthcare leaders to prioritize this instead of administrative tasks that they can do themselves. Trust has to be earned, and this is one way to do it.