Schwartz Center Launches New Education and Training Programs to Foster Compassionate, Collaborative Care

BOSTON, March 24, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, a national leader in the movement to make compassion a vital element in every patient-caregiver interaction, announced today the launch of two comprehensive educational offerings informed by the Compassionate, Collaborative Care - "The Triple C" - framework, a new interdisciplinary model focused on improving quality and outcomes.

The new educational programs to support the Triple C framework include a Compassion in Action monthly webinar series and a groundbreaking interprofessional continuing education course, Compassion in Practice: Achieving Better Outcomes by Maximizing Communication, Relationships and Resilience, to be offered in Boston on Oct. 28-29, 2016. This course has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ by Harvard Medical School. The webinar series and continuing education course will be taught by internationally renowned faculty, including Schwartz Center Medical Director Beth Lown, MD.

The programs will address the growing emphasis on relationship-based care, which is not routinely taught, modeled and assessed in health care settings. They will provide health care professionals with strategies and skills to improve their ability to experience and offer compassionate care in ways that matter to patients, families and themselves. 

These new educational programs are supported by two recent articles published in medical journals by Dr. Beth Lown and her colleagues. The article published in Academic Medicine describes how the Triple C framework can help health care professionals strengthen their communication skills, enhance work culture, improve patient outcomes, and engage patients, families and colleagues more successfully. The article in Medical Education, leverages the latest research in neuroscience to identify how education could be aligned with changes in clinical practice to sustain compassionate care and act as an antidote to clinician burnout.

"We're in the midst of an epidemic of health care professional burnout," said Dr. Beth Lown, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and medical director of the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare. "Fortunately, we know that compassion and collaboration is an antidote to isolation and burnout. We also know that initiatives based on the Triple C framework can help sustain compassion through collaboration to improve the quality of care, achieve better health outcomes, and revitalize professional satisfaction."

The Triple C framework was co-developed by the Schwartz Center and the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, with support and guidance from the Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence (University of Chicago) and the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.

"The Triple C framework comes at a time when health care is rapidly changing. At this inflection point for the health care system, we are thrilled to formalize an innovative educational program with essential skills that put compassion and collaboration into practice in such a way that quality of care is improved and health care professionals' well-being is enhanced,"  said Julie Rosen, executive director of the Schwartz Center.

In addition to the educational offerings around the Triple C framework, the Schwartz Center is planning to launch a set of initiatives with a diverse group of stakeholders, representing a major investment in the areas of compassionate care measurement, quality improvement and research.

Learn more and register for the year-long Compassion in Action webinar series at theschwartzcenter.org/compassioninaction and the Compassion in Practice continuing education course at theschwartzcenter.org/compassioninpractice.

About the Compassionate in Practice Continuing Education Course
The inaugural session of Compassion in Practice: Achieving Better Outcomes by Maximizing Communication, Relationships and Resilience will be held on Oct. 28-29, 2016 in Boston, Mass. This course has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ by Harvard Medical School. Featuring an internationally recognized faculty in disciplines spanning neuroscience to clinical education, this course is designed to train physicians, nurses, social workers and others to collaboratively enhance communication skills, optimize professional relationships and improve efficiency and sense of joy in practice. Visit theschwartzcenter.org/compassioninpractice to learn more about the course.

About the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare
Established in 1995, the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, a leader in the movement to make compassion a vital element in every patient-caregiver interaction, was founded on the belief that greater compassion and more meaningful collaboration are fundamental to the kind of care clinicians want to deliver and patients want to receive. 

Through educational programs and training, the Center helps health care professionals and patients break through barriers to compassionate, collaborative care created by today's challenging health care environment. The innovative Schwartz Center Rounds^® program unites caregivers from a range of disciplines to share experiences, learn from each other and focus on the human dimension of medicine.

More than 500 organizations in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, encompassing 200,000 health care professionals, rely on Schwartz Center programs to support clinician well-being, enhance the quality of care, enable better outcomes and create a more positive and rewarding experience for all members of the care team, patients and their families. 

To help patients and family members acknowledge caregivers who epitomize the qualities of compassionate care the Schwartz Center established the Honor Your Caregiver program.  Through its National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year award, the Center celebrates health care professionals who display extraordinary devotion and compassion in caring for patients and families.

Visit us at theschwartzcenter.org or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

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SOURCE The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare