Patient Satisfaction: Empathy is the Driver

The most powerful lessons I've learned in my 20+ years of nursing have been as a patient, a daughter, a mother, & a wife. 

Experiencing healthcare from these perspectives, drives all my interactions with patients. & their families. 

Sadly, over the years, I've witnessed colleagues treat patients & families with disrespect, disdain, & complacency; and it has broken my heart. Often, I've wished & said, "I believe every doctor & nurse need to spend time as a patient once a year." 

I firmly believe that walking in another's shoes drives empathetic & compassionate care. 

Unfortunately, the costs & logistics of having every healthcare provider spend time as a patient are prohibitive. So, I put my wish away, deep inside my mind, comforting myself that at least patients were getting quality care. 

Of course, I wasn't the only one concerned with the experiences patients & families were having while receiving care. In 2005, the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCCAPS) patient satisfaction survey was born. Hospitals began to survey patients in 2007 at the direction of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), & public reporting of Patient Satisfaction scores began in 2008.

Since 2005, we've been teaching to the HCCAPS questions. 

"During this hospital stay, how often did nurses treat you with courtesy and respect?" 

Hospital educators all over the country have been teaching scripting to emphasize the keywords of the survey, consulted experts, & have even held acting classes for nurses. All this in an effort to drive Top Box scores from patients answering "always" to questions about how doctors & nurses performed during their stay. This approach has resulted in little progress for many hospitals; others have seen great progress with little sustainability. We've ended up with frustrated administrators, educators, & staff. 

What if we stopped teaching to the survey & began to focus on developing empathy & compassion in hospital staff? 

This thought was percolating in my mind as I drove to work listening to a podcast. The moment I heard Morgan Spurlock say to Tim Ferris, "VR (Virtual Reality) has the ability to become an empathy machine," I knew we could have every healthcare provider become a patient!  

"Empathy is at the core of health care. VR is an empathy hack." Susannah Fox

Healthcare has been experimenting with VR in medical schools & nursing schools for a while now, but there's been little discussion about using virtual situations to stimulate empathy. Content developers, however, have glimpsed the future. The United Nations has teamed up with Vrse.works & Vice Media to bring immersive experiences to those who can help.

So, VR is here & has the ability to create empathy. But can healthcare afford it? 

Before you answer, snap your VR viewer to your smart phone (if you have them, it's ok if you don't) & jump over to The Patient Journey to watch a sample of what is possible, but come right back for some other great examples.

VR viewers are fairly reasonable, with the Samsung Gear VR costing less than $100 & the high end Oculus Rift around $600. But, production costs can be overwhelming. With healthcare costs already high, can we really afford to invest in VR empathy training? 

Maybe not now, but I see this happening in the future. It makes me wonder, though...what might we do now to bridge that gap between scripting and feeling?

What are your thoughts?

Examples of How VR is used to Create Empathy 

The Machine To Be Another 

The examples below are best viewed in the Within App & with a VR viewer & from the Here Be Dragons website. For conventional views, click the videos below.

Clouds Over Sidra

The Displaced

Additional Reading: 

Is Virtual Reality the Ultimate Empathy Machine

The UN Is Using Virtual Reality To Make The Rich And Powerful Feel Empathy

Chris Milk Ted Talk: How virtual reality can create the ultimate empathy machine

Inside the Empathy Machine: VR, Neuroscience, Race, and Journalism