Whole Person Healthcare Humanizing Healthcare

From a top healthcare futurist, frontline innovator, and Deloitte consultant comes a bold new vision for Humanizing Healthcare—hardwiring humanity at every point of care—that is good for people and good for business. Our nation’s healthcare and life science industry has changed dramatically over the past few decades—and not always for the better. In addition to rising costs and access challenges, the current system has caused needless suffering for patients and clinicians alike: physically, emotionally, financially, and socially. There have been numerous efforts to overhaul the system, but nothing has yet cured healthcare of its illnesses. In Humanizing Healthcare, paramedic-turned-physician executive and Deloitte Managing Director Summer Knight draws on her years of experience on the frontlines of healthcare to offer a powerful road map for real reform. Her refreshingly human approach to transforming our healthcare system provides practical strategies to: Identify core problems in the current system—and find the best workable solutions. Combine healthcare with social services—and build stronger networks of support. Use digital technology and virtual visits to provide expert care at lower costs. Empower healthcare consumers to make smarter choices in their treatment and purchasing options. Form therapeutic alliances between the clinical team (physicians and staff) and the home team (family and friends). Build a solid foundation for ongoing improvements that are truly sustainable, affordable, and humane. This is a clear, compassionate guide to how the industry can transform to embody a more human perspective and use it as a collective north star that will positively impact all stakeholders—consumers, providers, caregivers, staff, executives, shareholders, and the government—alike. Most importantly, this book will open your eyes to what’s possible when you create high-quality, deeply felt alliances that deliver consumer-driven care with value to all. Humanizing Healthcare is the future of health.

Health care regulatory agencies demand that patients receive efficient, competent, compassionate care; however, because of caregivers' own unhealed issues along with other factors, care often falls short of those goals. Melanie Sears, RN, MBA, PhD, leverages more than thirty years of nursing experience to look at what really prevents patients from getting the care they need and health care workers from getting the support needed to thrive in the stressful environment of health care. From domination-style management, fear and judgment-based practitioner relationships, and a poignant separation between physical, mental, and emotional care, the costs of these factors are enormous. Sears argues that the most effective way to evolve this problematic culture is to shift the language used by those providing care.

This book introduces human factors engineering (HFE) principles, guidelines, and design methods for medical device design. It starts with an overview of physical, perceptual, and cognitive abilities and limitations, and their implications for design. This analysis produces a set of human factors principles that can be applied across many design challenges, which are then applied to guidelines for designing input controls, visual displays, auditory displays (alerts, alarms, warnings), and human-computer interaction. Specific challenges and solutions for various medical device domains, such as robotic surgery, laparoscopic surgery, artificial organs, wearables, continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps, and reprocessing, are discussed. Human factors research and design methods are provided and integrated into a human factors design lifecycle, and a discussion of regulatory requirements and procedures is provided, including guidance on what human factors activities should be conducted when and how they should be documented. This hands-on professional reference is an essential introduction and resource for students and practitioners in HFE, biomedical engineering, industrial design, graphic design, user-experience design, quality engineering, product management, and regulatory affairs. Teaches readers to design medical devices that are safer, more effective, and less error prone; Explains the role and responsibilities of regulatory agencies in medical device design; Introduces analysis and research methods such as UFMEA, task analysis, heuristic evaluation, and usability testing.

A ground-breaking new volume and the first of its kind to concisely outline and explicate the emerging field of whole person care process, Whole Person Care: A New Paradigm for the 21st Century organizes the disparate strains of literature on the topic. It does so by clarifying the concept of 'whole person' and also by outlining the challenges and opportunities that death anxiety poses to the practice of whole person care. Whole person care seeks to study, understand and promote the role of health care in relieving suffering and promoting healing in acute and chronic illness as a complement to the disease focus of biomedicine. The focus is on the whole person -- physical, emotional, social, and spiritual. Using concise, easy-to-read language, the early chapters offer practitioners a thorough understanding of the concepts, skills and tools necessary for the practice of whole person care from a clinician-patient interaction standpoint, while the last two chapters review the myriad implications of whole person care for medical practice. An invaluable resource for all areas of medical practice and for practitioners at all stages of development, from medical students to physicians and allied health providers with many years of experience, Whole Person Care: A New Paradigm for the 21st Century will have a profound impact on western medical practice in North America and elsewhere.

Looking at the current turmoil facing contemporary healthcare systems worldwide, resulting from relentless imposition of financially-based performance indicators, the author argues that a return to a values-based approach to healthcare will create positive transformation. Writing from the fresh perspective of social anthropology, the author takes a highly pragmatic approach to practice, emphasizing the importance of values such as compassion, solidarity and social justice. He suggests that without being able clearly to identify the values and goals that unite their members, healthcare organizations are unlikely to be able to meet the demands of the constant and varied pressures they face, and explains how individuals at every level in healthcare can contribute in practical ways to positive change within their organizations. This much-needed and very accessible book will be essential reading for anyone interested in a better approach to healthcare reform, from clinicians and nurses, to managers and policy makers, as well as the interested reader.

This book argues persuasively and passionately that patient care is best when the patient’s healing journey is as good as it can possibly be. That means the patient as a Whole Person – the self in all its physiological, emotional, social and even spiritual dimensions – should receive truly comprehensive patient-centered care. In Whole Person Care: Transforming Healthcare, the author, an expert in whole person care theory and practice, outlines the background of whole person care, explains and illustrates the key ideas, puts the growing movement of whole person care in the context of other recent developments in healthcare, and explores the implications of whole person care for individual practitioners, healthcare teams, and the organization of healthcare at the institutional and systems level. In addition, the author provides a compelling, coherent narrative, rich with clinical examples and vignettes, that clarifies for physicians, medical students and healthcare administrators the meaning of whole person care and its implications for the future of medical practice. An invaluable resource for all clinicians and personnel concerned with managing patients with acute and chronic illness, Whole Person Care: Transforming Healthcare is a major addition to the literature and a must-read for health practitioners and health administrators at every level.

What is the golden standard of healthcare today? It's an important question. As a medical professional, you operate in a more disconnected environment than your predecessors. Compliance standards and excessive documentation keep you in front of computers instead of patients, and low reimbursement rates mean packing the day with appointments and sacrificing quality of care. Dr. Larry Benz is finding ways to humanize healthcare again. In Called to Care, he shows you how to ignore constraints and build quality connections by treating patients as people, not numbers. He and his team know that patients who feel heard are more engaged in their treatment; more patient engagement equals better outcomes for everyone. Dr. Benz helps you reach new heights as a provider by helping you break out of your current cycle, renew your purpose, and improve the patient experience. This is a book about reconnection. Find out how to reclaim your compassion, restore your patient relationships, and revive your calling.

Humanising Mental Health Care in Australia is a unique and innovative contribution to the healthcare literature that outlines the trauma-informed approaches necessary to provide a more compassionate model of care for those who suffer with mental illness. The impact of abuse and trauma is frequently overlooked in this population, to the detriment of both individual and society. This work highlights the importance of recognising such a history and responding humanely. The book explores the trauma-informed perspective across four sections. The first outlines theory, constructs and effects of abuse and trauma. The second section addresses the effects of abuse and trauma on specific populations. The third section outlines a diverse range of individual treatment approaches. The final section takes a broader perspective, examining the importance of culture and training as well as the organisation and delivery of services. Written in an accessible style by a diverse group of national and international experts, Humanising Mental Health Care in Australia is an invaluable resource for mental health clinicians, the community managed and primary health sectors, policy makers and researchers, and will be a helpful reference for people who have experienced trauma and those who care for them.

We have a problem in healthcare. That problem is this: in today’s healthcare environment, especially in the United States, people take a back seat to the numbers in almost every aspect of healthcare service delivery. Productivity, utilization, and other business metrics rule the roost. If it’s not calculatable, spreadsheet-able, or measurable, it hardly receives any attention from healthcare managers, administrators, and decision-makers. We can’t simply sit back and allow the dehumanization that currently runs rampant in our clinics and hospitals continue to wreak havoc on one of the most important factors in clinical outcomes: the relationships between healthcare professionals and the people (patients) that they serve. Healthcare is a great and noble profession, but it will only remain so if we, as healthcare professionals, return its focus to its true purpose: people, the people receiving care, and the people working to deliver that care. After all, we’re all more than simply numbers on spreadsheets or items on checklists. Better Outcomes: A Guide for Humanizing Healthcare outlines the 8 changes that organizations and clinicians need to commit to in order to return to the focus of healthcare to where it should be: the patient. The book covers topics related to truly patient-centered care, a biopsychosocial approach to service delivery, patient engagement, interpersonal communication, and developing long-term relationships with patients. Through an exploration of both clinical research and real-life examples and cases, the book outlines and supports a vision of a new healthcare, where skilled, competence, and caring clinicians care for engaged patients to promote better clinical outcomes, deliver unmatched satisfaction, and lasting relationships.