Humanistic care in healthcare management: A comparative study in three hospitals in Eastern Province-Saudi Arabia

Background: Healthcare leadership by its very nature is essentially humanistic, and this is as critical and integral as is the leader's attention to high-quality clinical care and technical excellence. Humanistic care to employees is a requisite in organizations that wish their employees to provide humanistic care to patients. Aims: Project aimed to assess and compare of healthcare employees about humanistic care practiced by department heads in three different hospitals in Eastern Province: One Ministry of Health Hospital, Teaching Hospital - Khobar, and one private hospital. Settings and Design: Study design was cross-sectional paper-based survey done in three hospitals in Eastern Province. Materials and Methods: Target population was physicians, paramedics (nurses, therapists, technicians, and other ancillary personnel involved in medical care) who directly report to department heads. Data collection sheet was designed to assess the degree of humanistic care and Likert scale of five was used. Statistical Analysis: Data were statistically analyzed using SPSS (20). Three hospitals were compared for humanistic care offered to employees. Kruskal-Wallis test was conducted to assess significant differences of employees perceptions between three hospitals. Statistical significance at P Results and Conclusions: Almost all humanistic care dimensions were perceived higher in the governmental hospitals in comparison to private hospital and the difference was statistically significant ( P ) . The difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). JCI Accreditation improved humanistic care.