Organizational Behavior Management Approaches to Advancing Compassionate Care in Research and Practice

Compassion in health care has been associated with improved patient outcomes, better treatment adherence, patient engagement, and satisfaction. However, much of this literature is limited by weak design and measurement strategies. Despite researchers’ efforts to demystify compassion and produce an evidence-based understanding of it, empirical models and definitions remain a work in progress. In this article, we discuss how contemporary methodological features of organizational behavior management (OBM) could be used to advance our understanding of compassionate care and its impact on important outcomes for patients, clinicians, and organizations alike. Recommendations for measuring, assessing, and intervening at both the individual and systems-level to promote compassionate care are provided. Though the origin, development, and maintenance of compassion may be complex, it is clear that behavior analysts have an ethical obligation to invoke compassion in their service to others. Likewise, those at the executive level of decision making in organizations have an obligation to purposefully design environments that support behavior analysts’ engagement in compassionate care. Viewing compassionate care through a systems lens may help to align the values and goals of patients, clinicians, and organizations by treating compassion like a critical business metric.