New technologies are transforming healthcare work and changing how patients interact with healthcare providers. As artificial intelligence systems, robotics, and data analytics become more sophisticated, some clinical tasks will become obsolete and others will be reconfigured. While it is not possible to predict these developments precisely, it is important to understand their inevitability and to prepare for the changes that lie ahead. Without Compassion, There Is No Healthcare argues that compassion must be upheld as the bedrock and guiding purpose of healthcare work. Emerging technologies have the potential to subvert this purpose but also to enable and expand it, creating new conduits for compassionate care. Cultivating these benefits and guarding against potential threats will require vigilance and determination from healthcare providers, educators, leaders, patients, and advocates. The contributors to this book show the way forward, bringing a diverse range of expertise to confront these challenges. Avoiding platitudes and simple dichotomies, they examine what compassion in healthcare means and how it can be practised, now and in the uncertain future. Without Compassion, There Is No Healthcare is a call to action. Drawing together a decade of evidence and insight generated by a community of leading scholars and practitioners committed to promoting compassionate care, it offers steady principles and practices to steer the way through times of technological change.

Brian D. Hodges is executive vice president of education and chief medical officer of the University Health Network and professor in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto.

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Gail Paech is chief executive officer of AMS Healthcare.

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Jocelyn Bennett is director of the Compassion Project, AMS Healthcare, and adjunct lecturer in the Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto.

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“… the contributors to Without Compassion, There Is No Healthcare make an expansive case that one commitment guiding the design and use of technology in health care must be compassion. Much work remains to contextualize the various meanings of and possibilities for the affectively rich topic of compassion. For those invested in this project and interested in the human dimensions of technology and health, [this book] provides a strong call for deepening these engagements.” H-Sci-Med-Tech

"More than two dozen authors have contributed to Without Compassion, There Is No Healthcare. They explore and champion the importance of compassion from many angles, including artificial intelligence, virtual care, patient engagement, equity, relationships, burnout, leadership, education, and systemic compassion. Our biggest challenge is to decode the foundational elements of health care that will remain true, now and after the pandemic, even if AI takes over specific tasks of delivering that work. This book is a must read." Canadian Journal of Physician Leadership

"This book makes a compelling case for how compassion can and must be maintained as technology is incorporated into practice. It is a wonderful tool for medical educators across the health professions. Chapters on compassionate health care organizations and compassion for healthcare workers extend the reach beyond direct patient care to emphasize compassion as a core value for health care. As a medical educator, I am grateful that AMS has the foresight to establish the Phoenix Project that led to this important contribution." Dr. Carol Herbert, Western University