Trust is one of the most essential elements in our overall human existence. It is a critical part of our human experience, one that reaches well beyond the boundaries of healthcare. Trust is the element that holds society together. It emerges in the relationship of one human being connecting with another human being, and it reaches to the engagements people have with organizations, institutions, and systems as well. Trust, while hard to hold, is ever present. It is a powerful force that guides our way of being, our interactions, our choices, even if we ourselves are not directly conscious of it. With that, it stands firmly as a cornerstone of experience excellence overall and is why a commitment to human experience matters. Ultimately, a commitment to human experience matters in our conversation specifically here, as it is an essential driver of trust itself. It is not trust that creates experience, but rather it is trust that is fostered by it. And trust provides a path of us to achieve that outcomes we aspired to and that all people deserve.
This study investigates how communication and service quality in Patient Relationship Management impact patient satisfaction through trust. The literature in this field is predominantly in developed countries, whereas it is scarce in sub-Saharan Africa. Combining bibliometric analysis and structural equation modelling, the study highlights emerging research trends and provides empirical evidence to guide healthcare practitioners, policymakers, and researchers in improving patient care. To strengthen its theoretical foundation, the study integrates the Social Exchange Theory and Expectancy–Disconfirmation Theory to explain the model. The study retrieved quantitative data from the Scopus database for bibliometric analysis. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 310 patients for SEM analysis using purposive sampling. Bibliometric findings revealed that while ``patient satisfaction'' is widely studied, key relational constructs such as trust, communication, and service quality are underutilized, with lower keyword occurrences and limited co-citation networks. This indicates a gap in the literature and highlights the need for empirical investigation of these dimensions. The result of the structural equation modelling revealed that communication and trust had significant direct effects on satisfaction. Service quality had an insignificant direct effect on satisfaction. Trust was found to have a significant mediation effect on the link between communication, service quality, and satisfaction. Patient level of education had a significant moderating effect on the association between perceived service quality, communication, and satisfaction. The study explores provider-patient interaction dynamics within healthcare institutions using a mixed-methods framework, contributing to scholarly discussions and benefiting lawmakers and managers.
Rising financial pressures and the need to revitalize culture prompted a renewed emphasis on patient experience at Billings Clinic. This case study describes the impact of redefining patient experience as a measure of trust and a set of care processes. It presents an alternative to the more traditional view of patient experience as an outcome metric based on meeting patient expectations. Billings Clinic chose the patient survey question likelihood of recommending as an organizational goal or key performance indicator (KPI). Under the direction of executive leadership, the patient experience team developed a new strategic framework aimed at driving improvement for this metric. Key features of this framework include reframing likelihood to recommend as a measure of trust, creating strong executive and departmental leadership connections, engaging directly with care teams, developing a patient experience tactic library, sharing patient survey data transparently and utilizing industry developed patient survey goal setting and improvement tools. In all service lines where goals were set, there was an increase in the likelihood of recommending scores. The increase also outpaced the national average increase in several service lines. Patient experience metrics were viewed as a reflection of process consistency rather than individual performance. Overall, this approach created a more focused, collaborative, and actionable way to improve patient experience. By simplifying data, refining communication, and connecting insights to daily workflows, teams were better able to understand their impact and take meaningful action.
Healthcare professionals are often taught that empathy, defined as imagining oneself in the emotional experience of another, is essential to providing excellent care. Yet in high-stress, high-stakes clinical environments, the very tool given to increase patient and employee connection can contribute to disengagement, burnout, and diminished resiliency. This research review article examines the longstanding conflation of empathy and compassion in healthcare and argues that the distinction between the two is not merely semantic but critical to provider well-being and patient outcomes. Drawing on research from neuroscience, psychology, and communication studies, the piece outlines how emotional, perspective-taking empathy activates the brain's pain and stress centers, increasing emotional load for clinicians who are already working in environments defined by high emotion and low control. In contrast, compassion, defined as recognizing another's suffering paired with a desire to help, engages neural pathways associated with regulation, problem-solving, and connection. Compassion-based approaches have been associated with improved resilience, enhanced patient satisfaction, and increased provider engagement. By separating these concepts and examining their distinct impacts, this article highlights why ``compassion fatigue'' may be a misnomer for what is actually empathy-driven overload. The intended takeaway is a reframing of how caring connections are taught and practiced in healthcare: shifting from empathy as emotional immersion to compassion as a sustainable, action-oriented tool that protects providers while still strengthening the quality of connection at the heart of the patient experience.
Trust in the healthcare system is an important driver of public health, but is sometimes lacking among individuals and communities. Patient and family engagement in research and service development is one proposed means of influencing trust. Patients and families can be engaged authentically and meaningfully as partners in the conduct of research and the development of healthcare services. When engagement is conducted following best practices, patients and families have the opportunity to build strong mutual relationships with project leads, hold a share of the power in the discipline, and exercise choice to influence the research and service development agenda. These mechanisms might increase trust in researchers and clinicians, potentially extending to institutions and entire systems of care. However, if conducted poorly, patient and family engagement may erode trust, creating frustration, skepticism, and retraumatization. When engagement goes wrong, the utmost care must be taken to building shared solutions to challenges, with the goal of rebuilding trust that has been lost. Importantly, no amount of high-quality engagement can be expected to erase the substantial historical and current harms that have been done to patients and communities within the healthcare system. In order for patient and family engagement to increase trust in the healthcare system, it is incumbent on project leads to be worthy of the trust they seek, while always maintaining the context of a historical backdrop that was not.
