Our Mission

Mission Statement -- Sacramento Heart & Soul of Healthcare 

ASSESSMENT OF NEED STATEMENT:

Due to the strong momentum in healthcare to integrate new technologies and focus on the biomedical aspects of illness, humanistic approaches to care are being increasingly challenged. It is apparent to patients and clinicians that there is a waning emphasis on interpersonal skills in caregiving.

In addition, an emphasis on efficiency and productivity has had a negative impact on human-to-human interactions. The combination of these two trends has contributed to patients feeling dissatisfied and healthcare professionals feeling disconnected from a meaningful practice experience that includes emotional fulfillment and autonomy.  

The outcomes of this trend are: patient’s feeling less personalized care; clinicians experiencing less professional satisfaction; and, in some cases, lower quality of care. 

There are very few organized systems of support for healthcare professionals who desire to practice medicine in a humanistic way.

• Humanistic care simply means care that acknowledges and nurtures aspects of healthcare that have been valued since the beginning:

  • Focusing on all aspects of illness and healing: biomedical, emotional, social, and spiritual.

  • Maintaining relationships as the central focus of healthcare.

  • Placing listening, empathy, and compassion at the center of the care experience.

  • Acknowledging patients as the experts in their own lives.

  • Honoring the values, desires, and preferences of patients and their families over time.

  • Tapping into the patients’ strengths and sources of resilience to promote health and healing.

  • Allowing professionals to express their full selves in the workplace in the service of caring.

  • Recognizing that healthcare professionals are also patients--that we are vulnerable and our patients are, "just like us."

• These humanistic factors add to the value of every clinical encounter.  And, they are especially important when caring for people whose medical problems are not easily resolved through biomedical interventions—which means the majority of patients. Examples of medical problems that demand holistic treatment from a humanistic perspective include:

• • Mental illness and addiction

  • Disorders affected by stress

  • End of life care

  • Chronic pain

  • Cancer and cancer survivorship 

  • Progressive organ failure: heart, lungs, kidneys

  • Obesity

  • Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms

  • Any serious chronic illness that significantly impacts patients’ quality of life

• Biomedicine tends to focus on the transactional aspects of care rather than the relational aspects.  From the biomedical  perspective, the goal of communication is the exchange of information.  Human beings however don’t just need information to heal—they need relationships, and relationships are nurtured when practicing medicine from a humanistic perspective.

• Lack of a humanistic approach harms the well-being and satisfaction of clinicians as well as the quality of medical care.  

• There is a lack of community of support for health care professionals who seek to provide humanistic care.  With the demands of medical practice so high, and the incentives of medical systems that emphasize biomedical aspects of care, it’s very easy for our humanistic qualities to wither like the leaves of plant that lacks food and water.  Active steps are needed to reverse this situation and support clinicians in practicing humanistic care.

VISION STATEMENT: 

We seek to reverse the emerging harmful aspects of transactional, biomedically-focused care by assisting interested humanistically oriented healthcare providers in reconnecting with care based on more humanistic motivations – to thrive in the practice of medicine. 

• We will be a resource for content and structures that are helpful for ongoing group experiences that can be replicated across other locations

• We will continually seek out high-level partnerships that support our goals

GOALS STATEMENT:

We will develop processes and methods required to grow our impact

• Identify frontline healthcare providers who are like-minded and who may benefit from what we offer

• Identify individuals who are in positions of influence and power who might provide support for our Mission and Vision

• Identify significant like-minded organizations to identify synergies that support our Mission and Vision, and establish partnerships with those organizations.

• Promote the learning, sharing, disseminating, and celebrating of aspects of humanistic care that nurture and support patients, clinicians, and healthcare organizations through in-person and virtual gatherings, in a safe and open-minded spirit, with a balance of structured and explorative conversations.