Thomas Lee – författare

The best strategies in healthcare begin with empathy

Revolutionary advances in medical knowledge have caused doctors to become so focused on their narrow fields of expertise that they often overlook the simplest fact of all: their patients are suffering. This suffering goes beyond physical pain. It includes the fear, uncertainty, anxiety, confusion, mistrust, and waiting that so often characterize modern healthcare.

One of healthcare’s most acclaimed thought leaders, Dr. Thomas H. Lee shows that world-class medical treatment and compassionate care are not mutually exclusive. In An Epidemic of Empathy in Healthcare, he argues that we must have it both ways—that combining advanced science with empathic care is the only way to build the health systems our society needs and deserves. Organizing providers so that care is compassionate and coordinated is not only the right thing to do for patients, it also forms the core of strategy in healthcare’s competitive new marketplace. It provides business advantages to organizations that strive to reduce human suffering effectively, reliably, and efficiently.

Lee explains how to develop a culture that treats the patient, not the malady, and he provides step-by-step guidance for unleashing an “epidemic of empathy” by:

Healthcare is entering a new era driven by competition on value—meeting patients’ needs as efficiently as possible. Leaders must make the choice either to move forward and build a new culture designed for twenty-first-century medicine or to maintain old models and practices and be left behind.

Lee argues that empathic care resonates with the noblest values of all clinicians. If healthcare organizations can help caregivers live up to these values and focus on alleviating their patients’ suffering, they hold the key to improving value-based care and driving business success.

Join the compassionate care movement and unleash an epidemic of empathy!

Thomas H. Lee, MD, is Chief Medical Officer of Press Ganey, with more than three decades of experience in healthcare performance improvement as a practicing physician, a leader in provider organizations, researcher, and health policy expert. He is a Professor (Part-time) of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health.

From the top experts on healthcare workforce engagement comes a vital road map to reduce the alarmingly high—and fast-growing—rate of staff burnout and to transform care.

More than half of U.S. physicians and 40 percent of nurses experience one or more symptoms of burnout. This crisis poses a serious threat to our health systems, impacting not only the well-being of the caregiving workforce but also that of their patients.

Written by a team of thought leaders with deep expertise in healthcare workforce engagement and cultural development, The Engaged Caregiver shows leaders, managers, and front-line providers how to:

•Recognize the early signs of burnout and turn it around

•Address staff more effectively to keep them engaged

•Build strong, reliable teams with a real sense of purpose

•Map their organization’s core values and get everyone on board

•Create a positive culture that’s cohesive, inclusive, and resilient

•Develop highly effective leadership and organizational systems

•Hire, engage, and manage talent strategically—and successfully

•Promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace

•Leverage data to drive improvements throughout the organization

In this wide-ranging guide, healthcare professionals will learn how to identify, diagnose, address, and overcome caregiver burnout on a personal level, as well as measure, develop, and implement strategies that improve the entire workplace culture. The Engaged Caregiver provides an actionable plan for creating a resilient work culture that empowers caregivers and gives them the support they need to fulfill the patient promise with every care experience, every day.

From the author of The Epidemic of Empathy in Healthcare and The Good Doctor comes a book that explores how the pandemic and other crises revealed what excellence in healthcare truly means and presents an action plan to achieve it.

The goal of healthcare has always been to reduce suffering, but three perfect storms of recent years—the health storm produced by the Covid-19 pandemic; the economic storm that resulted from its disruptions; and the social storm that followed the murder of George Floyd, which sparked fresh outrage at longstanding inequities—have sharpened and added important nuances to our understanding of what that means. In Healthcare’s Path Forward, Thomas Lee explores how the work of healthcare is being transformed by a deeper knowledge of what suffering means for patients, their families, and healthcare providers themselves. To respond, healthcare organizations must: