Franciscan Missionaries Health System Pushes Active Listening Initiative

"We Listen. We Heal." emphasizes the practice of listening to hear, comprehend, and remember.

The Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System are striving to improve the patient-physician relationship and promote empathy with a new systemwide active listening initiative.

"We Listen. We Heal." is a call to action encouraging healthcare workers and caregivers to practice active listening—another  person  undivided attention to better  hear, comprehend, and remember what they're saying.

"Feeling like you're truly engaged in conversation and paying attention--you would think that's just a natural thing that we should be doing," Hunter Richardson, CPB, chief human resources officer for the health system, said. "But time after time, evidence from focus groups tells us those particular individuals don't necessarily feel like they're always receiving that response from providers, from caregivers, even from our team members over time."

The  system's leaders, providers, and team members have all done training on active listening and how it ties into the system's core behaviors, which include service and humility, Richardson said.

"We really wanted to put a focus on making sure that who we are as a Catholic ministry and what our identity in and of itself should mean is the care in which we provide to those patients or even to our own team members or leaders," he said.

For the duration of the pandemic, active listening has grown in importance not only for patients, but for team members as well, Richardson said. If team members feel heard, in addition to practicing active listening themselves, they will replicate that behavior with patients, he said.

James Craven, MD, president of the system's employed provider group, sees "We Listen. We Heal." as a chance to renew their commitment to their patients. A surgeon himself, he said  it's important to hear a patient's story because it can influence the decisions he makes regarding their care.

The system's research into what patients look for in healthcare or provider relationships found that the main requests were good outcomes, timely and efficient care, and someone who would listen to them.

"It's really about that sacred encounter, that physician-patient relationship," Craven said. "If you go back to most of all our training, no one really told us or sat down with us and taught us how to interview patients. It's something providers learn on their own."

The goal is for active listening to become a normal practice and not just something that's taught, Richardson said. This will be an important part of the system's selection and onboarding process going forward, he added, emphasizing the need to make sure team members are individuals who believe in the system's mission and practice its behaviors.

"With any initiative, I always break it down to what are we trying to do?" Craven said. "What we're trying to do is improve the patient experience and for that we're trying to do exactly what the consumer or patient wants in healthcare. They want good outcomes, the want timely and efficient care, and to do that, we have to refocus on listening to the patient."