Articles
What we’re contemplating, doing, and reading.
An Innovative Partnership to Create a Culture of Compassionate Healthcare
Since 2022, CI’s Health program has collaborated with El Rio Health, a nonprofit community health center which serves approximately 10% of the entire Tucson community, to implement compassion-based training as a component of their provider wellbeing program.
Led by CI-certified compassion cultivation teachers with deep experience working in the health sector, we worked with El Rio Health to implement a series of CI’s established Health programs, including Compassion Cultivation Training© (CCT™) and Caring From the Inside Out (CFIO). Recognizing the need for an adaptable and “whole organization” approach, we expanded our partnership to include additional offerings, including a Peer Support workshop, monthly CI program alumni drop-in sessions, and compassionate leadership modules to support El Rio Health’s efforts to apply compassion throughout their entire organization.
Measuring Our Impact
From 2024 to 2025, CI’s Research, Evaluation, and Learning Consultant, Jenna Pryor, led a study to measure the impact of CI’s compassion-based training programs on El Rio Health staff’s individual and collective experiences with burnout, well-being, and compassion. Through survey results, in-depth interviews, and focus groups with both CI alumni and non-alumni at El Rio Health, we uncovered lessons about how to embed compassion into a healthcare organization.
Of those who responded to the Caring From the Inside Out (CFIO) post-course survey prior to 2024, participants reported improvements in the following areas:
⦿ 81.5% were more connected with their sense of purpose
⦿ 75% felt that their mental and emotional wellbeing was improved
⦿ 73.8% were better able to focus on achieving their goals
⦿ 55.4% were enjoying their work more
⦿ 53.8% felt less burned out by their job
Below are a few other big takeaways from the case study.
Organizational change isn’t built in a day. In talking with El Rio Health’s leadership team, we heard about the significant amount of time, energy, and money invested in planning their provider wellness initiatives. From launching comprehensive staff burnout surveys to creating new leadership roles, El Rio Health has carefully considered and mapped their approach to compassion at all levels of the organization. And while they still need to provide constant communications to the organization about ongoing initiatives, the preparation they did upfront ensured that their investments were put to good use.
Modeling active engagement. Clinicians felt empowered to attend CI programs, often held during the work day, since the El Rio Health leadership team set aside time to also attend these sessions. FQHCs clinicians are often juggling huge patient loads, on top of many other responsibilities. Seeing leadership participate in compassion-based trainings when they could have been using that time to see patients, encouraged other clinicians to set some time in an already packed schedule to mindfully engage in sessions geared toward physician wellness. However, even for clinicians who signed up for a compassion-based training and who attended some sessions, committing to all of the sessions in a course was sometimes difficult. Remaining flexible to the changing needs and capacity of providers and staff is critical to retaining buy-in and keeping the momentum for the larger initiative to transform organizational culture at a community health setting.
The biggest barrier to burnout prevention is the expectation for clinicians to do more. According to one leader at El Rio Health, one challenge in mitigating provider burnout is the ever-expanding list of requirements put upon physicians, especially at many community health centers. “[It’s] not just that providers are feeling it more, it’s actually that what we have had asking providers to do over the last 20 years has significantly increased,” the leader shared. Although compassion-based training and strategies can help to improve individual and collective wellbeing, system-level issues, such as administrative requirements, must be acknowledged. Health leaders should evaluate how they can lighten this administrative load in the planning of provider wellness initiatives. Changing policies, practices, and systems to be more supportive and compassionate for providers will look different for each organization. In El Rio Health’s case, one way they began to address this issue was upgrading their electronic health record system, resulting in a nearly 50% reduction in staff frustration with the EMR system.
Community is key. Time and time again, El Rio Health staff told us that the relationship-building that occurs during CI compassion-based trainings was one of the key components that lived on past the end of the program. Participants also found it easier to discuss burnout and stress with colleagues who attended the program, with one participant saying, “sometimes as a clinician with burnout, you don’t want to talk about it. You just suck it in and you feel like you’re alone in that…It’s very difficult to actually talk about. So having this vehicle to be able to open up about those things, I think is helpful.” El Rio Health also began their initiative with a strong foundation of compassionate leadership and senior staff that was helpful in continuing to build a culture of compassion. Organizations looking to create a culture of compassion could begin by identifying “champions” internally that can help lead the implementation of compassion at all levels in the organization.
To Learn More
Our experience in serving the healthcare sector reveals that individuals in systems can perceive wellbeing interventions as another task that they don’t have the time or mental space to consider with openness and curiosity. This is not a personal failure, rather an opportunity for organizations like CI to work closely with our committed partners to cocreate creative solutions that foster safety. Trust is built when we don’t skip over the systemic obstacles and individual needs in an attempt to “fix the problem.” Wellbeing interventions can’t be approached as a one-size fits all solution to complex challenges that are resistant to change. At CI, and over the years of collaboration with El Rio Health, compassion is not just the end goal, but the catalytic force that informs how we drive meaningful change along the way.
To hear more about CI’s partnership with El Rio Health, and further findings from the case study, please sign up for our webinar, “Compassion and Medicine at a Community Health Center,” which will be held on Thursday, May 8, 2025, 3pm PDT. You can register for that webinar here.
Click here to read more compassion blogs and stories.