{"id":266088,"date":"2018-03-30T10:31:26","date_gmt":"2018-03-30T14:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/must-prioritize-caring-health-care\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:02:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:02:40","slug":"must-prioritize-caring-health-care","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2018\/03\/must-prioritize-caring-health-care\/","title":{"rendered":"We must prioritize caring in health care"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask any Canadian what \u201ccare\u201d means and you will get rapid-fire answers that include words like kindness, love, concern, compassion <\/em>and attentiveness<\/em>. We know with inner certainty what it feels like to be cared for. But ask if these qualities come to mind when thinking about experiences in the health care system and you might get a blank stare or even a smirk.<\/p>\n

As patients and caregivers we need emotional support, compassion and respect alongside expert analysis and intervention. If we make a collective decision that caring is a nonnegotiable component of healing, there are steps we can take to put caring back into health care.<\/p>\n

Systems that are increasingly controlled by money and data place little value on the hard-to-measure caring currency of the heart. Today\u2019s health professionals have little time for hand-holding or explaining procedures to frail elders, frightened cancer patients or worried family members. When Canada\u2019s altruistic front-line medical staff actually manage to defy \u201cefficiencies\u201d and to take time for a more personal approach, their caring actions reduce trauma, ease suffering and contribute to healing.<\/p>\n

There is a popular misperception that caring actions and the time they take threaten the economic efficiencies that drive contemporary Canadian health care. Vicki McKenna, president of the Ontario Nurses\u2019 Association, which was recently in contract negotiations with hospital administrators, remarked<\/a>: \u201cI have to keep reminding them to stop trying to industrialize health care…When you are caring for people, you have to look at things in a more humanized way.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is clear that medical professionals want to deliver kindness and comfort care. After all, a caring, compassionate disposition is usually what drew them into the field. But often they can\u2019t exercise it. For example, the imperative for accountability forces American physicians to do two hours of paperwork<\/a> for every hour spent with patients.<\/p>\n

Henry Mintzberg, Canadian author and professor of management studies, declares<\/a>, \u201cHealth care needs to become more effective by being less efficient.\u201d Medicine is a practice, not a science, he says, and health care is a collection of treatments, not a system. But the art of healing lies in how those treatments are carried out. And Mintzberg says that costs are easier to measure than benefits, which is why medicine has become a business instead of a practice and people have become clients rather than patients.<\/p>\n

Prioritizing caring in today\u2019s health care systems is not an impossible dream \u2014 it is a decision. \u00a0And it doesn\u2019t necessitate adding taxing hours to already hectic schedules. Caring is found in moments \u2014 it occurs in moments of genuinely meeting and being with patients. \u00a0The work of the educator and author Dr. Margaret Plews-Ogan<\/a> provides an inspiring example of how the smallest of caring actions can make a difference. Plews-Ogan teaches her students to include one descriptor that humanizes each patient: \u201cMrs. X is a 32-year-old English professor whose specialty is Dickens.\u00a0She is being admitted for…\u201d\u00a0Or\u00a0\u201cMr. Y is an 82-year-old grandfather of 12 who is very concerned about his dog Rex. He is being admitted for…\u201d Before they leave the bedside, Plews-Ogan insists her students look directly at the patient and ask, \u201cIs there anything else we can do for you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Patient experience and patient satisfaction with care are correlated with many beneficial outcomes<\/a> for the patient, their family caregivers and the health care system, including improved patient safety and clinical adherence to treatment guidelines. Canadian seniors reported the lowest level of satisfaction with the quality of health care they received in comparison with 11 other countries (including the US, UK and several European nations) in the 2017 Commonwealth Fund International Survey<\/a>. How different might those results be if we anticipated the need for humanizing, caring interactions at every step through the maze of our health care systems?<\/p>\n

From the perspective of patients and caregivers, caring interactions with providers should be considered the basis for a functioning health care relationship. Canadians should demand the right to kindness, respect and acknowledgement in their relationships with health care professionals.<\/p>\n

But demanding authentic, caring interactions is hard to do. After all, it can be extraordinarily difficult to demand anything when caught in the vulnerability and fear that come with illness, disability, pain or injury. It can be hard for health care practitioners as well. Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC\u2019s White Coat, Black Art<\/em>, always believed that caring came naturally to physicians, but the stress and heavy expectations of working for years in the emergency ward left him wondering if he might not be the same caring doctor he thought he was at the beginning of his career. His forthcoming book, The Power of Kindness<\/em><\/a>, explores his search for his lost compassion.<\/p>\n

Creating a culture of caring in our health institutions is doable. It could begin with reporting on caring interactions that health care professionals, administrators and team members (including cleaners and cafeteria workers) observe while on duty. Imagine something as simple as \u201cI see caring\u201d as a standard item on meeting agendas for hospital and health care facilities. It would make caring actions visible and heighten awareness of the importance of \u201cwarm data\u201d in patient healing and practitioner satisfaction.<\/p>\n

Caring can prevail in a system that treats patients as people instead of \u201chealth care consumers.\u201d Doctors and other providers need to revolt against a system ruled by efficiencies, and so do patients and family caregivers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for change.<\/p>\n

Photo: Shutterstock, by StockLite.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Do you have something to say about the article you just read? Be part of the\u00a0<\/em>Policy Options\u00a0discussion, and send in your own submission.\u00a0Here is a\u00a0<\/em>link<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on how to do it.\u00a0<\/em>|\u00a0Souhaitez-vous r\u00e9agir \u00e0 cet article ?\u00a0<\/em>Joignez-vous aux d\u00e9bats d\u2019<\/em>Options politiques\u00a0et soumettez-nous votre texte en suivant ces\u00a0<\/em>directives<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ask any Canadian what \u201ccare\u201d means and you will get rapid-fire answers that include words like kindness, love, concern, compassion and attentiveness. We know with inner certainty what it feels like to be cared for. But ask if these qualities come to mind when thinking about experiences in the health care system and you might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":256808,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-08-30T06:59:04Z","apple_news_api_id":"c1c6b7c1-0134-4bf8-81bf-57b734258553","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-08-30T06:59:04Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Awca3wQE0S_iBv1e3NCWFUw","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[9357,9372,9377],"tags":[9183],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[4251,4286],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[],"class_list":["post-266088","issues","type-issues","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politiques-sociales","category-recent-stories-fr","category-sante","tag-soins-de-sante","irpp-category-politique-sociale","irpp-category-sante"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nWe must prioritize caring in health care<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2018\/03\/must-prioritize-caring-health-care\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We must prioritize caring in health care\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ask any Canadian what \u201ccare\u201d means and you will get rapid-fire answers that include words like kindness, love, concern, compassion and attentiveness. 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