The design of compassionate care

Aims and objectives To investigate the tension between individual and organisational responses to contemporary demands for compassionate interactions in health care. Background Health care is often said to need more compassion among its practitioners. However, this represents a rather simpl...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Crawford, Paul, Brown, Brian, Kvangarsnes, Marit, Gilbert, Paul
Format: Article
Published: Wiley 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40195/
_version_ 1848796004254482432
author Crawford, Paul
Brown, Brian
Kvangarsnes, Marit
Gilbert, Paul
author_facet Crawford, Paul
Brown, Brian
Kvangarsnes, Marit
Gilbert, Paul
author_sort Crawford, Paul
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Aims and objectives To investigate the tension between individual and organisational responses to contemporary demands for compassionate interactions in health care. Background Health care is often said to need more compassion among its practitioners. However, this represents a rather simplistic view of the issue, situating the problem with individual practitioners rather than focusing on the overall design of care and healthcare organisations, which have often adopted a production-line approach. Design This is a position paper informed by a narrative literature review. Methods A search of the PubMed, Science Direct and CINAHL databases for the terms compassion, care and design was conducted in the research literature published from 2000 through to mid-2013. Results There is a relatively large literature on compassion in health care, where authors discuss the value of imbuing a variety of aspects of health services with compassion including nurses, other practitioners and, ultimately, among patients. This contrasts with the rather limited attention that compassionate practice has received in healthcare curricula and the lack of attention to how compassion is informed by organisational structures and processes. We discuss how making the clinic more welcoming for patients and promoting bidirectional compassion and compassion formation in nursing education can be part of an overall approach to the design of compassionate care. Conclusions We discuss a number of ways in which compassion can be enhanced through training, educational and organisational design, through exploiting the potential of brief opportunities for communication and through initiatives involving patients and service users, as well as practitioners and service leaders. Relevance to clinical practice The development of contemporary healthcare systems could usefully address the overall design of compassionate care rather than blame individual practitioners for a lack of compassion.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T19:41:05Z
format Article
id nottingham-40195
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T19:41:05Z
publishDate 2014
publisher Wiley
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-401952020-05-04T16:57:21Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40195/ The design of compassionate care Crawford, Paul Brown, Brian Kvangarsnes, Marit Gilbert, Paul Aims and objectives To investigate the tension between individual and organisational responses to contemporary demands for compassionate interactions in health care. Background Health care is often said to need more compassion among its practitioners. However, this represents a rather simplistic view of the issue, situating the problem with individual practitioners rather than focusing on the overall design of care and healthcare organisations, which have often adopted a production-line approach. Design This is a position paper informed by a narrative literature review. Methods A search of the PubMed, Science Direct and CINAHL databases for the terms compassion, care and design was conducted in the research literature published from 2000 through to mid-2013. Results There is a relatively large literature on compassion in health care, where authors discuss the value of imbuing a variety of aspects of health services with compassion including nurses, other practitioners and, ultimately, among patients. This contrasts with the rather limited attention that compassionate practice has received in healthcare curricula and the lack of attention to how compassion is informed by organisational structures and processes. We discuss how making the clinic more welcoming for patients and promoting bidirectional compassion and compassion formation in nursing education can be part of an overall approach to the design of compassionate care. Conclusions We discuss a number of ways in which compassion can be enhanced through training, educational and organisational design, through exploiting the potential of brief opportunities for communication and through initiatives involving patients and service users, as well as practitioners and service leaders. Relevance to clinical practice The development of contemporary healthcare systems could usefully address the overall design of compassionate care rather than blame individual practitioners for a lack of compassion. Wiley 2014-11-17 Article PeerReviewed Crawford, Paul, Brown, Brian, Kvangarsnes, Marit and Gilbert, Paul (2014) The design of compassionate care. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 23 (23-24). pp. 3589-3599. ISSN 1365-2702 Care Compassion Organisational Design Position paper Review http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jocn.12632 doi:10.1111/jocn.12632 doi:10.1111/jocn.12632
spellingShingle Care
Compassion
Organisational Design
Position paper
Review
Crawford, Paul
Brown, Brian
Kvangarsnes, Marit
Gilbert, Paul
The design of compassionate care
title The design of compassionate care
title_full The design of compassionate care
title_fullStr The design of compassionate care
title_full_unstemmed The design of compassionate care
title_short The design of compassionate care
title_sort design of compassionate care
topic Care
Compassion
Organisational Design
Position paper
Review
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40195/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40195/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40195/