01_Communicating_the_humanisation_EN_Doxa_30

of humanisation in the hospital. To train and foster this staff is the way to make information go both ways, to their subordinates as well as to their superiors, which could result in an improvement of communication in large hospitals.

As we could verify, hospital communication bears its own specific complexities. In the first place, hospitals are organizations where there are many ways to establish communication with the users. And, in the second place, workers are grouped in structures formed by different types of professionals. After listening to physicians and to the nursing staff during the focus group, a high level of corporatism is observed among the different professionals in hospitals. The “us” and “them”, with the other group being physicians, nurses, assistants or wardens, has a strong presence in the statements made by health care professionals.

Despite the pursuit of innovation by those who coordinate activities at large, mid-sized and small hospitals in their desire to find new ways to bring humanisation to every hospital worker, the data of the Observatory of the Madrid Health Service regarding patient care satisfaction in 2018 are, in general, somewhat lower than those of 2017.

One of the causes for this decrease could be the fact that the health care system is overloaded, with more patients, more consultations, physicians that don’t stop, who have less time, all of which could lead them to paying less attention to the patient.

Or perhaps the answer lies in the patients themselves, who begin to embrace certain standards and to demand more in the provision of hospital services, with the added pressure this brings to physicians and all health care professionals.

This could be a future line of research, working with patient associations and citizens in general in order to learn more about their perception of humanisation, and developing campaigns to foster the figure of the “informed patient”. Informed, yes –but also respectful, aware and empathetic with the specific circumstances that go along with the practice of health care professions.

And a third relevant line of research could be a comparison of health care services in the different Autonomous Communities in Spain and their advances in humanisation. The Social Responsibility in Health Care Network, with its growing national expansion, could be a valid commentator for this project.

We conclude that patient centred care, humanized care, is the ideal way to provide services within the health care system. At some point we will find it hard to remember that there was another way of providing hospital service. In order to achieve this and to provide the health care system with the necessary tools and communicational strategies it is important to continue research in the areas of communication and public relations.