Compassion In Action Archive

Innovations in Caring for Vulnerable Populations: The 2024 Corman IMPACT Honors Recipients

We hosted an engaging panel discussion featuring the 2024 Corman IMPACT Honors recipients to learn about their innovative programs that provide compassionate care to vulnerable populations and create safe spaces for patients and care teams alike. This year’s recipients are the Jefferson Addiction Multidisciplinary Service, which improves healthcare for people with substance use disorders and the people who care for them, and the Children’s Minnesota Gender Health Program, a multidisciplinary and comprehensive program that partners with transgender and gender-diverse youth and their families. Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown  facilitated a conversation with representatives from both programs, exploring their impact on patients, families, and their communities.

The Artificial Intelligence Revolution in Healthcare: Opportunity or Threat?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is here and evolving quickly. Join us for a presentation and discussion of the opportunities, promises and challenges of AI hosted by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Beth Lown, MD, moderated by Karl Swanson, MD, co-founder and head of data science at Quench, and panelists Michael Lesh, MD, CEO and founder of Quench, Ashwin Nayak, MD, MS, clinical assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University, and Vivek Rudrapatna, MD, PhD, gastroenterologist and assistant professor at University of California, San Francisco. Our panelists will describe how AI is being used in healthcare now, and what we can expect in the near future and long-term. We’ll discuss how this may affect compassionate patient care and healthcare workforce well-being, and what we can do collectively to shape this future. The discussion will follow with Q&A.

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Fireside Chat with Steve Trzeciak: Leading with Compassion

Join us for a fireside chat with Stephen W. Trzeciak, MD, MPH, and Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown. Dr. Trzeciak is chairman and chief of the department of medicine and medical director of the Adult Health Institute at Cooper University Health Care. He is also a professor of medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. Drs. Lown and Trzeciak will discuss how we create and, conversely, can erode compassionate cultures and how to demonstrate empowered compassion for ourselves and others. You will also learn about research that highlights the benefits of compassion, including its positive impact on patients, healthcare workers, and organizational culture and profitability.

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Reframing Distress: Why Moral Injury Matters

For decades, interventions for clinician distress have been less effective than hoped. By expanding our understanding of the clinicians’ experience to include moral injury, we can create organizations with thriving practitioners who can offer better care for their patients. Join us for this special webinar, hosted by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown, as we learn from Dr. Wendy Dean, CEO and co-founder of The Moral Injury of Healthcare. Dr. Dean is the author of “If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury In Medicine” and “Why It’s So Hard For Clinicians to Put Patients First,” and cohost of the “Moral Matters” and “43cc” podcasts. This conversation will be followed by Q&A.

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Toward a Healing Organization

Healthcare faces an existential crisis, which started before the COVID epidemic. The shift towards greater efficiency, productivity and profitability, combined with increasing pressures from payors, has created a gap between the moral foundation guiding the healing professions and the realities of academic, health and healing work.

There is a movement to reimagine organizational practices and culture as more equitable, compassionate, and collaborative. Join us for this webinar with Ken Epstein, PhD, LCSW, moderated by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown. Ken works as a consultant helping individuals, couples, families, communities and organizations repair, heal and promote collaborative culture change and has practiced, taught and supervised for close to three decades. He will review the context of organizational culture, the importance of reflective practice, and the necessity of measuring our capacity to be a healing organization for the people who work in it, as well as the community we serve.

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Portraits of Compassion: A Conversation with the 2023 National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year

Please join us for a special celebration of the 2023 National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year®. This year marks the 24th anniversary of this distinguished award, a national recognition program that celebrates healthcare professionals who exemplify extraordinary compassion in caring for patients and families. We invite you to meet this year’s National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year, and to listen as they share personal stories of giving, receiving, and making possible compassionate patient and family care during an intimate panel discussion moderated by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown.

The 2023 National Compassion Caregivers of the Year are:

  • Kristy Capps, BSN, RN, community RN case manager, Population Health SEWA, Providence St. Mary Medical Center, WA
  • Laura Harmon, MD, chair of the department of surgery, Boulder Community Health, CO
  • Kathryn Kirkland, MD, section chief and director, palliative medicine, Dartmouth Health, NH
  • Assumptah “Summie” Mwai, CHPNA, senior hospice aide, Care Dimensions Hospice, MA
  • Sonia Sutherland, MD, medical director, detention health, Contra Costa Health, CA
  • Lisa Thornsberry on behalf of the Complex Discharge Team, UK HealthCare, Good Samaritan Hospital, KY

Thank you to presenting sponsor CRICO for supporting the NCCY Award.

Supporting Mental Health and Preventing Health Worker Suicide

Challenging work conditions, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath put millions of health workers at risk for severe stress, burnout, depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, and suicidal behavior. Mental health stigma and fear of the impact of required treatment disclosure on licensure and credentialing inhibit health workers from getting the help they need. However, more is now known about suicide risk and prevention, and practical mental health support and risk reduction strategies are available.

In this webinar hosted by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown, Judy Davidson, DNP, RN, MCCM, FAAN, nurse scientist at University of California San Diego Health and research scientist for the UC San Diego School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, PhD, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, president of American Nurses Association, and Christine Yu Moutier, MD, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention will discuss the current status of health worker mental health, what we know about suicide risk factors, how to approach a colleague at risk, and practical strategies, programs and toolkits you can implement in your organization.

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Challenges and Best Practices in Protecting the Healthcare Environment in Today’s Complex World

Workplace violence against healthcare workers has been increasing, threatening their physical and psychological safety and well-being. Fearing for one’s personal safety and experiencing traumatic stress from threats and violence degrades professional satisfaction and makes it difficult for healthcare workers to provide high-quality, compassionate care.

In this webinar hosted by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown, Bonnie Michelman, CPP, CHPA, system vice president for police and security for Mass General Brigham, Jenn Goba, senior manager of workplace violence and investigations at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and Matt Thomas, training, development and communications specialist at MGH, share how their healthcare organization has proactively addressed and tried to prevent workplace violence, and how they respond when it occurs.

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How Healthcare Systems Are Tackling Health Inequities: Healthcare Anchor Network

The complex social structures, economic systems, and policies that affect quality of life have a far greater impact on health than the care we provide inside the walls of our healthcare facilities. In this webinar hosted by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth LownDavid Zuckerman, president of Healthcare Anchor Network and Nathalie Rosado Ortiz, system manager of Anchor Mission and Community Engagement and Rush University System for Health, will discuss the impact of these social determinants and structural violence on health and how Healthcare Anchor Network evolved to address these conditions in collaboration with healthcare systems across the country. You’ll learn how this work made a difference for a Chicago community and healthcare system during the pandemic and beyond. We will explore practical approaches that you can use to promote health equity.

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