Dr. Brian Harte, who became president of Cleveland Clinic Akron General last September, notes that a hospital can provide good care yet still not practice an essential skill that makes patients’ lives better.
Harte opened Thursday’s monthly Akron Roundtable luncheon with a story about his father, who developed a leg infection and had to be hospitalized late at night on Labor Day weekend in 2013.
“It has come to shape the way I look at hospitals and health care and leadership,” said Harte, the program’s keynote speaker.
The doctor was visiting his parents for the holiday weekend and took his dad to be admitted at a local hospital. The staff efficiently and competently treated his father, who is doing fine today, he said.
But he observed there was little to no dialogue between the staff and his father. Few asked how his father felt or made other small talk, he said.
After his father was tucked into his hospital room by 1:30 a.m., Harte said he was thinking “what a lonely place to be. And nobody acknowledged that.”
Harte said as he left early that morning, he clearly wondered if there were patients at Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield Heights, where he had just become president, who were experiencing the very same thing.
Hospital staff meet patients at one of the worst moments of their lives, when they are being admitted for treatment of a medical issue, Harte said.
“They have to immediately establish trust and bond with the patient and their families,” Harte said. “And the key to establishing that is the practice of empathy. And empathy is what I was looking for from the caregivers at this hospital with my dad.”
The Cleveland Clinic is working to fix that by holding classes on empathy for its physicians, he said.
“Empathy establishes trust,” Harte said. “Empathy is a clinical skill.”
Harte touched on other issues, including how health care technology and medical practice are changing and how that will affect Cleveland Clinic Akron General. The hospital is a bedrock of the community and will remain one, he said.
In taking questions from the audience, Harte said the Cleveland Clinic’s position on making changes to the federal Affordable Care Act involves focusing on repairing facets that need to work better.
In other matters, Harte said Cleveland Clinic Akron General continues to partner and train with local competitors Summa Health and Akron Children’s Hospital.
Summa Health’s current struggles will not affect Akron General, Harte said after the luncheon concluded.
“We have a good dialogue with Summa,” he said. Cleveland Clinic Akron General remains focused on its own work, he said.
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com.