Congratulations to Dale Ann Micalizzi and Marie Bismark on the publication of their article "The Heart of Health Care" in Pediatric Clinics of North America. An open access full text version is here. The abstract:
Behind the wall of silence in health care are the unanswered questions of parents whose children experienced harm at the hands of their caregivers. In an industry where information and communication are crucial to quality, parents’ voices often go unheard. Although that has begun slowly to change, providers could benefit from following the HEART model of service recovery, which includes hearing the concerns of patients and their families, empathizing with them, apologizing when care goes wrong, responding to parents’ concerns with openness, and thanking the patient and family.
Behind the wall of silence in health care are the unanswered questions of parents whose children experienced harm at the hands of their caregivers. In an industry where information and communication are crucial to quality, parents’ voices often go unheard. Although that has begun slowly to change, providers could benefit from following the HEART model of service recovery, which includes hearing the concerns of patients and their families, empathizing with them, apologizing when care goes wrong, responding to parents’ concerns with openness, and thanking the patient and family.