Cultivating Connection: The Magic of Attuning, Wondering, Following & Holding by Ann Flanagan Petry* in COJ Nursing & Healthcare_ Nursing Healthcare Open Access Journal
Introduction
Remember what drew you to health care? And what makes your work meaningful now? Chances are caring for people is the answer to both questions.
In fact, healthcare is provided through relationships. Over a decade ago we developed a care delivery framework described in the award-winning book Relationship-Based Care: A Model for Transforming Practice. We were on the vanguard of a revolution toward more patient-centered caring. Indeed, we have always known the importance of connection to patient experience, employee attitudes, interpersonal relations, teams and performance. For nurses, caring relationships are so essential at work that it is inseparable from the work itself. We believe the best nursing care requires understanding of three key relationships:
A. Relationship to one’s self,
B. Relationship to co-workers and
C. Relationship to patients and families.
And, the hallmark of meaningful connection is attunement or tuning-in to others with genuine interest and care.
When we deconstruct what makes for a meaningful connection, surprisingly, it is micro-moments - an expression of compassion that eases another’s suffering, or a glance of warmth and gratitude flashed by a family member after a difficult conversation. Such moments make us feel better, but research is now showing that these micro-moments of connection are also critical achieving important outcomes, whether it is patient outcome or team outcomes.
Yet, nurses often feel they don’t experience genuine connections frequently enough [1]. A major contributor to this is a phenomenon called complexity compression. First described in 2007, complexity compression is defined as what nurses’ experience when expected to assume extra, impromptu responsibilities while simultaneously managing existing job duties in a condensed time frame [2]. This phenomenon coupled with frequent interruptions, often from communication devices, further pulls attention away from the patient. The impact? Relationships with patients and families are disjointed and hurried. Amidst the busyness, there is less ability to focus and really listen to patients or teammates. Consider the startling statistic that the typical human attention span is dwindling from an average of 12 seconds in 2000 to just about 8 seconds as of 2013-less than the attention span of a goldfish [3]. We all know what interruptions and lack of focus feel like - it’s everywhere.
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