Making Patients Feel Better, Isn't That the Ultimate Goal for All Healthcare Stakeholders? (video)

Sometimes device industry folks get so hung up about the everyday issues - worries about bottom line, device tax, regulation challenges, pricing pressure, need to innovate or risk irrelevancy - that they forget what got them into the business.

And that is the single-minded goal to make patients feel better. 

Here are some of tag lines and mission statemente of major device corporations: 

Embedded in these lofty statements is something that doesn't get much priority: the need to feel empathy for patients, those ultimate consumers of these products.

But device companies, far removed from users/patients, are not the only ones guilty of not feeling empathy, so crucial in helping patients feel better. To tackle the issue, Cleveland Clinic, made a powerful, internal video for its employees that has now gone viral. MedCity News reports that the goal was to encourage its thousands of employees to try to understand what patients are going through and try to walk in their shoes.

And that empathy is something that device manufacturers also (and indeed anyone across the healthcare spectrum) would do well to develop. Here's the video: 

 [Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com user  LuminaStock]

-- By Arundhati Parmar, Senior Editor, MD+DI
[email protected]