Compassion is central to the purpose of medicine and the care of patients and their families. Compassionate
healthcare begins with compassionate people, but cannot be consistently provided without systemic changes that
enable clinicians and staff to collaborate and to care. We propose seven essential commitments to foster more
compassionate healthcare organizations and systems: a commitment to compassionate leadership, to teach
compassion, to value and reward compassionate care, to support clinical caregivers, to involve and partner with
patients and families, to build compassion into the organization of healthcare delivery, and a commitment to deepen
our understanding of compassion and its impact through research. Acting on these commitments will help us
attend with care to the ill, injured, and vulnerable in every interactio
