The Challenges and Opportunities for Healthcare Services in the Future

But down to its most fundamental level, patients’ needs is nothing more than the presence of someone that could offer them the great comfort they long for. Nonetheless, it is sad to see that this humanistic aspect is fading away and being corroded by the rapidly modernizing health care settings.

As health care providers, professionalism, respect and empathy should play an essential role in our daily routine. These core values allow us as health care providers to demonstrate understanding, compassion, and appreciation for our patients and their experiences. Utilizing these virtues will allow for an experience that will make the patient feel respected, valued and wanting to return.

The framework for creating a therapeutic relationship is built on the nurse’s ability to show empathy towards the client. Empathy is being able to put oneself in the patient’s shoes, to feel the same things they feel

Empathy is therefore a vital link in the process of Emotional Intelligence. (Ioannidou, F. 2008). In relation to Nursing, it enables nurses who have well developed empathetic listening skills to establish a rapport with a patient which can assist in establishing effective solutions and building a trusting professional nurse/patient relationship. By using effective skills in empathetic communication, Nurses have the ability to divert a potential highly emotional situation into effective and positive interactions. (Halpern, J. & Ebrary 2001)

By 2001 it was brutally apparent that the U.S. Health Care system was in dire need of a reform in regards to quality and patient safety. Following two separate reports issued by The Institute of Medicine (IOM), To Err is Human (1999) and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health Care System for the 21st Century(2001) the U.S. Congress requested the IOM review quality processes across multiple government funded health care programs. And understandably, “these reports described America’s healthcare system as a tangled, highly fragmented web that often wastes resources by duplicating efforts, leaving unaccountable gaps in coverage, and failing to build on the strengths of all health professionals” (Brown J., p. I – 15, 2013). Thus, the Committee on the Quality of Health Care in America released 6 aims to address key dimensions that require improvement in our health care system. These aims propose that our system needs to strive to be more Safe, Effective, Patient-Centered, Timely, Efficient, and Equitable (STEEEP). All of which were created to help overhaul our current health care system and, more importantly, narrow the quality chasm.

The importance of empathy in any helping profession, medical or social, cannot be overstated. The workers that exemplified it in their practice did the best that they could with their limited resources.

The health care industry is an environment that is competitive and expensive. To be a patient receiving care the urgency is high and at a very critical point to trust a team of strangers with your care possibly even your life. On the other side of that coin, treating and interacting with patients is a part of the health care industry because providing care does not end with the physician. In the middle of these two different side of health care is where management steps in and takes over the middle ground.

There are many challenges that are defining the future strategic direction of health care such as information technology advancements, access to health care, maintaining a skilled workforce, proposed health care reform and legislation, and rising costs. I will look at these challenges and how an organization may adapt its direction and strategies in accordance with these challenges.

One of the greatest changes in healthcare in the past ten years has been the rise of managed care, much to the displeasure of many patients and physicians alike. Managed care arose out of concern about spiraling healthcare costs and was designed to encourage physicians to give patients treatments that were cost-effective out of their own financial interests. "The consumer strategy was directed at imposing some barriers to use by levying various forms of co-insurance. The most common approaches used either deductibles (where the consumer paid the first portion of the bill a technique familiar in other types of insurance) or co-payments (where the consumer paid a portion of the bill and the insurance company the rest) or a combination of both' (Kane et al 1994). Managed care has given health insurance companies an increasingly significant voice in how treatment is administered and allocated. Managed care has proliferated in the past decade despite considerable criticism of the practice of 'nickel and diming' patients as well as the considerable bureaucratic red tape it is has generated. Also, research indicates that healthy, well-insured patients tend to over-consume care without meaningful co-pays but poorer, sicker patients can be deterred even by moderate co-payments and suffer negative health consequences (Kane et al 1994). However, managed care has not gone away and is a reality that all healthcare

In Chapter 5, The Author discuss the role of pervasive role of confirmation and empathy in health care. Empathy is considered as an important part of the emotional intelligence which is defined as the ability to understand and manage emotions of yourself and people around you. Empathy helps to build trust and hope in patient -provder relationship. Empathy or "capability of emotional knowing" is a part of behavioral attribute that contribute to quality of social interaction. Author has informed about the Jafferson Scale of Physician Emapathy (JSPE), which is used to evaluate empathy in healthcare providers.

Observing a GP during patient consultations, seeing his genuine concern and caring interest in each case, demonstrated fully the importance of compassion and effective communication. In a GP home visit, I met an elderly lady with Alzheimer's, who displayed no wish to cooperate, something I initially found difficult to comprehend. However, on reflection I understood the patient's right to refuse treatment, perhaps indicating this person's wish to retain some control in their life. The variety of my work experience has meant that I have been in the company of professionals who exhibited traits I believe I have developed through mentoring and teaching. These traits such as courtesy and empathy would ensure that I adopt a composed manner in sensitive or stressful situations, enabling me to communicate my understanding of what they are experiencing both physically and

Effective communication in the healthcare setting improves recovery rates and reduces pain and complication rates. (Wilkinson et al, 2003). Many complaints to the NHS are attributed to poor communication. Effective communication is reliant on the nurse working in partnership with the patient. It is essential that the nurse establishes a rapport and most of this will be achieved through the use of facial expressions. In my practice, it is important that develop a therapeutic relationship with the patients so that they can be able to put their trust in me. The therapeutic relationship is solely to meet the needs of the patient. In this relationship, there is a rapport established from a sense of mutual understanding and trust. To build a good nurse-patient relationship, I would have to show qualities of empathy, caring, sincerity and trustworthiness. During practice, if I am approaching a patient and the patient looks anxious, I should approach with empathy.

The future and direction of health care has been the topic of discussion amongst politician and U.S citizens today. There are several challenges surrounding the future and strategic direction in which health care should be heading. Accreditation, quality of health care and organization’s compliance; access to health care, maintaining a skilled workforce, information technology and pay for performance are some of the challenges that currently presenting itself in healthcare today. If health care is not dealt with appropriately it will have a significant effect an impact on the strategic direction in the future and direction of care.

Empathy provides the nurse with the perspective that is necessary to consider the most appropriate actions and interventions significant to a patient’s individual experience (Boggs. 2011, p.107). Failure of the nurse to empathize with a patient can result in a strained therapeutic relationship as a result of providing inadequate emotional support and client education (Boggs. 2011, p.107). In providing empathetic care it is important to mentally picture the client’s situation and perform self-checks, thereby assessing for personal bias and stereotypes (Arnold. 2011 p. 84). Additionally, there are multiple barriers to providing empathetic care, which include lack of time, lack of trust, lack of privacy, and lack of support, amongst others (Boggs. 2011, p.115).

Another crucial interpersonal skill which assumes a critical part in a radiographer- patient relationship is empathy. Eunson (2012) describes empathy as the emotional appreciation of another’s feelings. Not to be confused as sympathy, but empathetic people might squeeze ones hand in times of trouble, or offer kind words when one is grieving. According to research, empathy is ‘to recognise others' emotions, the reason for these emotions, and to have the capacity to take part in the emotional journey of a single person without directly be coming apart of it’ (Casselden, 1988). Needless to say,