Organizational and individual perspectives on caring in hospitals

Caring and humanism in hospitals exist on both the organizational and the individual levels. This paper identifies key organizations and foundations that have succeeded in promoting or fostering caring environments in hospitals. These include the Picker Institute, the Baptist Healing Trust, Sage Consulting, and the Caritas Consortium. Exemplary, caring clinicians in hospitals are also described. These clinicians developed positive relationships with patients and in interviews communicated a number of approaches to express caring to patients. Health and human services managers can take a number of steps to promote caring among their clinicians. However, they must implement a culture and a reward system that encourages humanism.