The Value of Engagement: Contributing, Sharing, and Growing Together We MUST transform the Human Experience in Healthcare: A Call to Action

By Jason A. Wolf, PhD, CPXP

For over a year we have been living through an extended moment we never anticipated, a once in a century pandemic that created one global shared experience. It brought us face-to-face with our humanity as we experienced suffering and fear, separation and the unknown. The pandemic cracked the foundations on which healthcare, and even more significantly our society, was built and revealed wounds long buried or only subtly acknowledged.

The realities and implications of inequity and disparities, long known, were pushed to the surface. The burdens on a healthcare workforce, long understood, were pushed to the brink. The need for connection and partnership in the face of separation was made clear.

Through all this, our community banded together to listen and support, to have tough conversations and share ideas, to provide a shoulder to lean on or a needed lift. Yet, through it all, we believed, we knew, that this moment provided us something more. In our belief that in healthcare we are first human beings caring for human beings, we came to recognize the human experience in healthcare. As a community built on deep roots in improving the patient experience, it’s important to note that the human experience – encompassing patient, workforce and community experiences – is not a move away from the foundational definition of patient experience but rather the positive and natural expansion of it.1

With that, and through the lessons and experiences of the Institute community and the communities we serve, we set forth a Declaration for Human Experience, a call to action for what we know we must do together to ensure a better, more connected and equitable system of care. With our community’s effort to frame The New Existence in the past year, we took great strides to frame a future we believe we need.

We stated without equivocation there is no normal to which to return, and there is no “new normal” to which we will arrive. Rather, we must reinforce what we know is right and true in leading to our future. We, as a community, through our shared declaration, called on all to lead courageously and stand for a future grounded in four essential commitments.

As the Declaration for Human Experience reads, in answering this call, we commit to:

• Acknowledge and dismantle systemic racism and prejudice, tackle disparities and provide the highest-quality, most equitable care possible.
• Understand and act on the needs and vulnerabilities of the healthcare workforce to honor their commitment and reaffirm and reenergize their purpose.
• Recognize and maintain a focus on what matters most to patients, their family members and care partners to ensure unparalleled care and a commitment to health and well-being.
• Collaborate through shared learning within and between organizations, systems and the broader healthcare continuum to forge a bold new path to a more human-centered, equitable and effective healthcare system.

As I wrote in our most recent issue of Patient Experience Journal, “If we are to truly ensure The New Existence for healthcare, we must be willing to engage in all that a commitment to transforming the human experience calls on us to do. And while we cannot and must not try to do it all at once in the face of doing nothing in the end, we need a path forward that ensures we commit to take action and then support one another in doing so.”

This call to action, this declaration, is not intended as words to read, but a framework for action through which we move forward. In the days, weeks and months ahead, we must continue to support one another in the waning arch of a dire time. We cannot forget those still in the midst of this struggle around the world who need our hope and support. With this view of the future, grounded in our shared story today, I ask, invite and encourage you to join in the steps ahead by not only signing the Declaration, but to work with us as we commit our actions and efforts to all we have ahead.

I have long shared a quote attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt in which she says, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” As we dream forward, I too believe in the power of our actions and the future we will build together.

1. Wolf J, Niederhauser V, Marshburn D, Lavela S. Reexamining “Defining Patient Experience”: The human experience in healthcare. Patient Experience Journal. 2021;8(1):16-29. https://pxjournal.org/journal/vol8/iss1/4/

Jason A. Wolf, PhD, CPXP
President & CEO
The Beryl Institute