The Schwartz Center and Leading National Healthcare Organizations to Host the Inaugural Compassion in Action Healthcare Conference

BOSTON, March 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, a national leader in the movement to strengthen and sustain the human connection at the heart of healthcare, today announced it will partner with the American Hospital Association (AHA), American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE), Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) and Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) to host the inaugural Compassion in Action Healthcare Conference in Boston, Mass. from June 25-27, 2017. The conference will convene a diverse group of healthcare professionals to share best practices that will address workforce burnout and further strengthen patient-family engagement and the quality of compassionate care in health systems.

Visit compassioninactionconference.org to learn more about the conference.

"This partnership emerged out of a common recognition that diverse perspectives are essential to meaningful culture change and critical to the caregiver and patient experience," said Ruth Kilduff, RN, Schwartz Center board chair and chair U.S. operations Integro Insurance Brokers.  "This conference will bring together healthcare leaders and frontline caregivers to forge solutions to the many obstacles health systems face as they incorporate compassionate care into value-based health systems."

Designed to be a unique, interactive and highly experiential convening, the conference will focus on skill-building, tools and best-practice sharing, with a focus on how organizations are able to implement, sustain and scale initiatives that improve organizational cultures in support of compassionate care.  Sessions will highlight communication, interprofessional teamwork and interpersonal skills, in addition to leadership development and strategies that successfully engage patients and families.

"We know that provider well-being and patient experience go hand-in-hand," said Dr. Maureen Swick, RN, AONE chief executive officer and AHA chief nursing officer. "Our commitment to finding individual, team and system-level solutions to improve this symbiotic relationship will be essential as we look towards the future of healthcare."

"Our goal is to bring together the next generation of emerging leaders across all roles in healthcare, each of which play an integral part in the overall well-being of the health system," said Dr. Jay Bhatt, HRET president and AHA chief medical officer. "This unique opportunity goes to the heart of why we choose healthcare as a calling."

Conference highlights include:

• Keynote presentations from health system chief executives, clinical leaders, patients and culture experts from both inside and outside of healthcare, including:
  • Marc Lesser, CEO of Search Inside Yourself, the most popular employee training program at Google
  • Stanford physician, Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, whose late husband's memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, has been a New York Times bestseller for more than a year
• Workshops led by international experts in organizational value articulation, inter/intra-personal skill building and new high-functioning teams
• Case-based discussions on initiatives ranging from patient safety innovation to workforce well-being strategies
• Collaboration-based innovation labs that will foster call-to-actions and solutions to advance compassionate culture across the healthcare system

"The power of compassion to create authentic relationships between patients and their caregivers is vital to high-quality care," said Lorraine Ryan, senior vice president of the Greater New York Hospital Association. "We are proud to continue our collaboration with the Schwartz Center as we make compassion a priority."

Through the support of organizations including the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence, AHA and GNYHA, a limited number of scholarships to attend the conference will be offered to students, trainees and underrepresented healthcare professionals.

The conference is made possible through the generous support of The Physicians Foundation and Tufts Health Plan. The media sponsor of this conference is STAT, a national news publication focused on finding and telling compelling stories about health, medicine and scientific discovery.

To register or learn more about the conference, please visit compassioninactionconference.org.

About the Inaugural Compassion in Action Healthcare Conference
The inaugural Compassion in Action Healthcare Conference will bring together clinicians, patients and health system leaders who are committed to making compassion a priority in their organizations and communities. Using the Compassionate Collaborative Care Framework as the foundation, participants will share best practices in advancing cultures of compassion, communication, interprofessional teamwork and interpersonal skills, and apply those techniques toward initiatives and strategies that achieve the quadruple aim of improving patient experience, population health and workforce well-being while lowering costs.

About the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare
Established in 1995, the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, a leader in the movement to strengthen and sustain the human connection at the heart of healthcare, 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.

The Schwartz Center is an independent, non-profit organization, with more than 425 healthcare members in the U.S., Canada and Australia, supporting 200,000 healthcare professionals each year. In partnership with the Point of Care Foundation, more than 150 organizations conduct the innovative Schwartz Rounds^TM program in the U.K., which unites caregivers from a range of disciplines to share experiences, learn from each other and focus on the human dimension of medicine. Schwartz Center members rely on programs, education and resources 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 healthcare 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.

About AHA
The American Hospital Association (AHA) is a not-for-profit association of healthcare provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA is the national advocate for its members, which include nearly 5,000 hospitals, healthcare systems, networks, other providers of care and 43,000 individual members. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for healthcare leaders and is a source of information on healthcare issues and trends. For more information, visit the AHA website at www.aha.org.

About AONE
The American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) is the national professional organization for nurses who design, facilitate and manage care. With more than 9,700 members, AONE is the leading voice of nursing leadership in health care. Since 1967, the organization has provided leadership, professional development, advocacy and research to advance nursing practice and patient care, promote nursing leadership excellence and shape public policy for healthcare. AONE is a subsidiary of the American Hospital Association.

About GNYHA
Founded in 1904, Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) is a trade association representing more than 160 member hospitals and health systems in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island. GNYHA is a dynamic, constantly evolving center for healthcare advocacy and expertise, but its core mission—helping hospitals deliver the finest patient care in the most cost-effective way—never changes. GNYHA's advocacy takes many forms, be it fighting for its members' interest in Washington and Albany or working alongside them to improve quality and patient safety. Each and every day, GNYHA works to ensure that its members have the tools to succeed

About HRET
Founded in 1944, the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) is the not-for-profit research and education affiliate of the American Hospital Association (AHA). HRET's mission is to transform healthcare through research and education. It focuses on identifying and exploring key issues affecting the healthcare delivery system. HRET's applied research focuses on improving quality, eliminating disparities, improving care coordination, improving leadership and governance, conducting data analysis and supporting the spread of improvement. Through AHA's Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence (HPOE) strategy, HRET has helped hospital leaders to accelerate performance improvement by disseminating best practices, producing actionable reports and toolkits, conducting leadership development programs and implementing national improvement projects. For more information, visit www.hret.org.

About STAT
STAT (www.statnews.com) delivers fast, deep and tough-minded journalism from the frontiers of health and medicine. We take readers inside science labs and hospitals, biotech boardrooms, and political backrooms, and introduce them to the power brokers and personalities who are driving a revolution in human health. STAT is headquartered in Boston with bureaus in Washington, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Atlanta.

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SOURCE The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare