Person-centred Music-making as a Cultural Change Agent for Compassionate Healthcare

To meet the care needs of the rapidly ageing patient populations, the cultivation of a compassionate patient-centred healthcare culture has becomecentral in the value-based healthcare discourse. A participatory music practice, ‘Meaningful Music in Healthcare’ employs a person-centred approach tomusic-making in Dutch hospitals. A grounded theory analysis on ethnographically collected data suggests that music-making serves as a social change agent and cultural resource for catalysing compassionate contact between healthcare professionals and patients. Processes of experiential growth and shared valuesin music-making and healthcare help to enrich care relationships and allow the emotional dimension of nurses’ professional performance to be explored.