Josiah Macy Foundation Supports New Education & Training Programs to Foster Compassionate, Collaborative Healthcare

 

The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, a national leader in the movement to make compassion a vital element in every patient-caregiver interaction, announced today the launch of two comprehensive educational offerings informed by the Compassionate, Collaborative Care - "The Triple C" - framework, a new interdisciplinary model focused on improving quality and outcomes.

 

The new educational programs to support the Triple C framework include a Compassion in Action monthly webinar series and a groundbreaking interprofessional continuing education course, Compassion in Practice: Achieving Better Outcomes by Maximizing Communication, Relationships and Resilience, to be offered in Boston on Oct. 28-29, 2016. This course has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ by Harvard Medical School. The webinar series and continuing education course will be taught by internationally renowned faculty, including Schwartz Center Medical Director Beth Lown, MD.

 

The programs will address the growing emphasis on relationship-based care, which is not routinely taught, modeled and assessed in health care settings. They will provide health care professionals with strategies and skills to improve their ability to experience and offer compassionate care in ways that matter to patients, families and themselves. 

 

These new educational programs are supported by two recent articles published in medical journals by Dr. Beth Lown and her colleagues. The article published in Academic Medicine describes how the Triple C framework can help health care professionals strengthen their communication skills, enhance work culture, improve patient outcomes, and engage patients, families and colleagues more successfully. The article in Medical Education, leverages the latest research in neuroscience to identify how education could be aligned with changes in clinical practice to sustain compassionate care and act as an antidote to clinician burnout.

 

"We're in the midst of an epidemic of health care professional burnout," said Dr. Beth Lown, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and medical director of the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare. "Fortunately, we know that compassion and collaboration is an antidote to isolation and burnout. We also know that initiatives based on the Triple C framework can help sustain compassion through collaboration to improve the quality of care, achieve better health outcomes, and revitalize professional satisfaction."

 

The Triple C framework was co-developed by the Schwartz Center and the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, with support and guidance from the Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence (University of Chicago) and the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.

 

"The Triple C framework comes at a time when health care is rapidly changing. At this inflection point for the health care system, we are thrilled to formalize an innovative educational program with essential skills that put compassion and collaboration into practice in such a way that quality of care is improved and health care professionals' well-being is enhanced,"  said Julie Rosen, executive director of the Schwartz Center.

 

In addition to the educational offerings around the Triple C framework, the Schwartz Center is planning to launch a set of initiatives with a diverse group of stakeholders, representing a major investment in the areas of compassionate care measurement, quality improvement and research.

 

Learn more and register for the year-long Compassion in Action webinar series at theschwartzcenter.org/compassioninaction and the Compassion in Practice continuing education course at theschwartzcenter.org/compassioninpractice.