Compassion Cures
How does compassion affect the mental health of providers?
Compassion is a holistic, yet necessary means of facilitating patient recovery, as it increases trust between the patient and the provider. Additionally, providing compassion stimulates the brain’s reward center, providing a feel-good feeling to physicians. Providing compassion has been proven to increase the likelihood of that compassionate individual in caring for and providing funding toward those suffering economically according to a study conducted by Davidson and colleagues.
Compassion Improves Patient Outcomes
Compassion is vital for patient recovery. Patients receiving compassionate care by their healthcare providers have much higher recovery rates than their counterparts who do not receive such care. For instance, the likelihood that a patient suffering from diabetes will obtain an ideal and maintainable blood sugar level 80 percent higher and the likelihood of receiving unbearable symptoms are 41 percent lower when the patient receives care from a compassionate provider.
Efficiency Rates
Not only do these patients receiving compassionate care see higher efficiency rates in terms of recovery, but these patients also spend less time at the doctor’s office, as patients with a compassionate provider see a 50 percent reduction in medical bills.
This is most likely due to the compassionate providers taking the time to understand the patient and suggest realistic lifestyle changes based upon the patient’s needs, which prevents superfluous prescriptions, referrals, follow-up appointments, laboratory testing, and time spent waiting in the doctor’s office.
Compassion can be implemented into a provider’s work routine by sitting down with patients, establishing and maintaining eye contact with each patient, allowing patients to express their health concerns, and instituting concern for the needs of patients.
