“Mehavah” works to strengthen humanity and compassion in the Israeli healthcare system, believing that compassion is not a luxury but a significant therapeutic tool. The management of “Gaha” and the association set a number of goals for the implementation of the initiative at the start, including strengthening the personal relationship between therapist and patient, increasing compassion and seeing the patient as a whole person with an emphasis on hope and recovery, increasing the sense of meaning of the teams and building a plan adapted in collaboration with teams and patients to the special nature of hospitalization in mental health.
Today, the initiative is incorporated as part of the clinical routine of receiving a patient in the 5th Ward in Geha, during which the patients fill out “I wanted you to know”, in which their personal story is presented, accompanied by a photo from a significant moment. This way, the staff can get to know them better and a closer conversation is created. In the pilot that took place, additional tools were incorporated and it was found that in the department the most effective and preferred way is through group collaboration, where the patients were exposed to each other and the staff through personal stories, thereby building a safe space of listening and connection.
Yael, a patient in her 20s, who was hospitalized for the first time following the development of a psychotic condition, says: “In the ‘I wanted you to know’ group I had the opportunity to share and tell about my life and the things I like to do. It was an opportunity to get to know me as I am, beyond the illness and the current hospitalization.
I told there that I sing in the choir and how much I miss singing. From that moment, all of a sudden the staff members and patients started treating me more as someone who likes to sing, and less according to my diagnosis. It was empowering. I felt that I was known more as a person and less by my illness.”
Even an existing feature can be cultivated and improved. The assimilation process of ‘I wanted you to know’ in Gaha proved that narrative tools can have significant power in improving the patient experience, in creating a connection between people and in strengthening therapeutic processes, and the success in its assimilation in groups points to the potential for its further development and its more extensive application in other health systems.
An example of this is the story of a young patient in a closed ward who turned out to be a successful game programmer, and this changed the way the team saw him, since a simple method of personal sharing creates closeness, increases the person’s vision beyond his illness, reduces stigma, improves the quality of care and strengthens the patients’ trust in the team.