When It Comes To Patient Engagement…It’s The Little Things That Count

I did a dumb thing a couple of weeks ago.   I fell off a ladder on to a cement floor and broke some ribs.

I went to the local ER, was x-rayed, and went home.   There’s nothing they do for broken ribs these days it seems.   The treating Physician’s Assistant told me she had notified my primary care doctor of my fall and resulting injuries.   Mind you this is the same primary care physician who was aware of my 3 recent retinal detachments, major surgeries (Vitrectomies), and prolonged recovery from these events.

It’s been a month since I feel off the ladder….and in all that time I haven’t heard a peep from my personal physician.  That bothers me.

It’s not like I had a problem that needed follow-up…but it would have been nice – perhaps even prudent – for his office to call and see how I was doing.   Why?  The fact that he didn’t call just reminds me that my physician really doesn’t think or care very much about me – as a patient or a person.   Either that or he has yet to read the ER report of my injury from 4 week ago.

In truth everyone I have spoken to about this has had a similar experience.  This is unfortunate for patients and the medical profession.   As patient’s we are continually reminded that physicians don’t have time for us or our problems.  We chide ourselves for not looking for a new doctor in the hope that things might be better.   For their part,  medical professionals meanwhile are clueless why their patients are not as engaged in their health or adherent as they should be.

Want to Engage Your Patients?  Act Like You Care

We all know primary care physicians are very busy and not properly reimbursed for all the work they do.  We also know you all had mothers that “taught you better.”  We all had those same mothers.  Mine used to tell us kids that you “catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.”

If you really want to blow the socks off even the most jaded of patients….call them up and ask them how they are doing.  Start with a phone call – it’s more personal than an e-mail.  Just tell the patient that you “know there not ever enough time during office visits to show you care…so when you had a free minute you wanted to remedy that.”

Start with your chronic and frail patients – one call is all you need.  Do this one simple  albeit time consumer thing and your outcomes ill improve, patient adherence will improve, patient satisfaction and loyalty will improve…and you will feel better about yourself.  Think of it as a long-term investment.

You need more proof?  Calculate the ROI of buying and installing an EMR system and hiring a care coordinator and then compare it to the cost of making a single phone call to your sickest patients.   When you compare the saving from the EMR and the cost of your time to make the phone calls….you will be amazed that you didn’t do it sooner!

This ain’t rocket science!  Go out now and make your Mamma proud!

That’s my opinion…what’s yours?

If you like this post you will love my White Paper on Patient Engagement send me your email and I get you a copy.

Sources:

Stein, T., Nagy, V.T., Jacobs, L. (1998). Caring for Patients One Conversation at a Time : Permanente Journal, 2(4), 62-68.

Will Information Technology Squeeze Physicians Out Of Their Central Role In Health Care?

Not by a long shot if patients have anything to say about it.

Turns out that while most of us (90%) would like be able to make a doctor’s appointment and check lab results online….85% of us also still want the option of be able to talk to our physician face-to-face.  These are the finding from a recent 2012 study conducted by Accenture.

These finding will no doubt come as a surprise to many of those high tech newcomers to health care looking to make physician and trips to the doctor’s office a thing of the past with some new “killer health app.” You wouldn’t believe how little many of these software and app developers know about how health care works.  Then again, if you have looked at some of the EMRs, PHRs, and patient portals solutions being hyped out there maybe you could believe it.

What is significant about the finding cited above is that patients at least get it.  They understand the value of a having a relationship with a knowledgeable physician or similar health care provider.  In spite of, and for some, because of the plethora of health information outlets on the web people want to know that they always have access to your family doc when the chips are down.

What newbie software engineers and  smart phone app developers fail to understand is that health care is fundamentally about social interactions…not technical data transactions like depositing a check or making an airline reservation.

Here’s what I mean…based upon some 20+ years working in health care:

• From the get go…going back to Hippocrates…health and health care delivery has been about the relationships between people starting with the  physician-patient.relationship.

• The most important diagnostic tool a physician has at their disposal is not a smart phone…but their ability to talk with and observe  patients verbal and non-verbal behavior.

•  “Talk” is not only how physicians diagnose problems and recommend the appropriate treatments…talk is also how patients are able to engage in the health care.  Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of talk (and touch) during the medical exam is the therapeutic benefits patients derive from being able to express heart-felt fears and concerns to someone who hopefully cares.

The unfulfilled promises of so much of health information technology today (like Electronic Medical Records, Personal Health Records, and Patient Portals), with some notable exceptions like Kaiser, Group Health and the VA, can be traced directly back to developers not understanding that their job is to enable physician-patient relationships not get in their way or try and replace them.

Check out this related post – Patient Engagement Is A Physician-Patient Communication Challenge…Not A Health Information Technology Challenge

I don’t consider myself a Luddite when it comes to health information technology…nor would I put most physicians in this category.  The health industry is going through massive change, and unfortunately in such time, there is also a lot of false starts and waste that comes from ill conceived HIT solutions.  I suspect that tech vendors that take the time to learn the business that is health care, and commit themselves to improving the physician-patient relationship…will do just fine.

 The Take Away…

The physician-patient relationship remains paramount for us patients.  Yes there are problems…yes physicians and patient need to learn to do a better job communicating with one another.  But when everything is said and done…when the chips are down…we don’t want to be forced to diagnose and treat ourselves.  We want to be able to see and talk with our doctor when we want.  And honoring the patient’s perspective after all is what patient-centered care is all about right?

And oh by the way…we still want the convenience of being able to go online to schedule an appointment and check out lab tests.

That’s my opinion…what’s yours?

Sources:

Squeezing out the doctor -The role of physicians at the center of health care is under pressure.  The Economist. June 2012.

Could mobile apps replace doctors?  KevinMD.com

 

Improving The Way Doctors And Patients Communicate – A Silver Bullet For Fixing What’s Wrong With Health Care?

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words…

Why It’s So Important For Physicians To Listen – The Patient’s Perspective

A recent qualitative study (structured interviews) of patients conducted at       McGill University School of Medicine underscores the importance of listening in physician-patient interactions.   In this study, patients were asked to identify the qualities of a good physician.   The following is a typical patient response:

“A good physician is somebody who will listen to what the problem is and explain to you what it is and what is being done.’’

When people were asked why listening by the physician was so important, researchers discovered three important themes that have apply to every provider today.

Theme #1 – Respondents (people/patients) believed that listening was essential if the physician was to arrive at the right (and credible) diagnosis. 

Representative Comments:

• ‘Physicians “should trust the person in front of them and hear what they’re saying. . .because I know my body better than anybody else.“

• ‘‘Listen to what they [patients] have to say; not just what other people wrote about them in the doctor’s notes.

• ‘‘[If] I feel that I haven’t had enough time with you to tell you exactly what my story is, even when you give me a prescription I’m going to say, ‘Really? Is this prescription right for me and for my illness? Or [is it] going to give me more complications?’. . .and I think sometimes that’s why you find patients will take it for 1–2 days and after that they forget about it, because they say, ‘He didn’t hear what I had to say about this pain.

Theme #2 – Listening is healing and therapeutic.

For years researchers have written about the therapeutic value of strong physician-patient communications.    Turns out patients recognize the same benefits.  For example,  a physician who listens and “validates the patient’s perspective or expresses empathy may help a patient experience improved psychological well-being—fewer negative emotions (e.g., fear, anxiety) and more positive ones (e.g., hope, optimism, and self-worth) “

Representative Comments:

• ‘‘If a doctor doesn’t respect the patient, or doesn’t listen, the patient feels more worried and unsettled and this has an impact on their health.’’

• ‘‘Sometimes, listening to a person will cure half of your problem. . . like it takes two or three months to get an appointment. In those two–three months, you make your problem worse by thinking, ‘Oh maybe it is this, or that or that or that.’

• ‘‘if you listen to the patient and give the patient respect, what you are actually doing is helping that person take responsibility for their own health – that they are also in control of the healing process and are involved somehow. So the doctor has to not take all the power away from the patient.’’

For related patient (and physician thoughts) on this subject, check the following story and COMMENTS on CNN

Theme #3 – Listening can foster and strengthen the doctor–patient relationship if it is authentic

Representative Comments:

• ‘‘I want the doctor. . . to have empathy and to listen and to look into my eyes and to make me feel that for that short moment…you are hearing me, you are there for me, and you give me that sense that I matter

• ‘‘It still makes me angry when I think about how I was. . .how I sort of felt ridiculed for my looking into alternative options.’’

• I think they [physicians] should listen out of respect. Sometimes I think that caring and compassion can be patronizing, if it is insincere. You can still be arrogant and project this caring and compassionate facade.

Take Aways

Over all I was struck by the following as I read this study…particularly the respondent comments.

• People/patients in the study clearly recognized the link between effective listening (by providers) and quality of care.    Too often providers are quick to discount the accuracy or validity of patient perceptions of quality whether in the hospital or doctor’s office.  The comments reflected in this study suggest otherwise.

• Listen skills are essential to patient engagement and positive patient experiences.   To be engaging, providers must be “relevant” from the patient’s perspective.   To be relevant, providers must solicit and listen to what patients want to tell them.

• If listening is therapeutic and has the power to heal…does this mean that physicians who 1) do not solicit or 2)  ignore or gloss over patient input are not practicing at the “standard of care?”  Given that poor physician-patient communications is a leading cause of malpractice suits it would seem so.

• Health care providers (physicians and hospitals) would do well routinely do a “deep dive” into their patient satisfaction research to get a true and realistic handle on the quality of their provider’s listening and other communication skills.   I am not sure that the standard HCAPS and CHAPS survey instruments  probe physician-patient communications far enough.

That’s what I think.  What’s your opinion?

Source:

R. L. Street et al.   How does communication heal? Pathways linking clinician-patient communication to health outcomes. Patient Education and Counseling, 2009. 74(3), 295-301.

J.  Jagosh et al.  Patient Education and Counseling.  85 (2011) 369–374

Patient Portals. PHRs, & On-line Decision-Support Tools Alone Will Not Lead To Greater Patient Engagement

Patient engagement is getting a lot of attention these days, particularly in the health information technology press.   Anticipation of Stage 2 Meaningful Use criteria is certainly is driving much of the “talk.”  So too are the promises of improved patient outcomes and satisfaction associated with the adoption of patient engagement tools like EMRs, PHRs, web portals, and on-line decision support tools.

But if the mere availability of such health information technology was all there was to engagement…member use of health plan web portals, which have been around for years, would be a lot higher than they are now, e..g., often < 10% of members.

Patient Engagement Begins With The Patient-Physician Relationship Not Technology

If you were to take everything you read at face value, all physicians and hospitals need to to engage patients is patient or member web-based portal.  I guess the idea is if you build it…they will come. But there is a HUGE FATAL FLAW in that logic:

 Successful patient engagement is predicated upon the existence of a strong, trusting, mutually satisfying relationship between the patient and their physician.

Strong, trusting physician-patient relationships are becoming harder and harder to develop and maintain these days…for both patients and providers.   Poor physician communication skills, e.g., physician-directed communications, have been cited in the literature over last 30 years as a major barrier to more satisfying and productive physician-patient relationships. Poor communications also tops the list of patient complaints about their doctors.  Not surprisingly,  many patients find it easier to “get by” in an OK relationship with a primary care provider than seek a provider with a more engaging demeanor

What Are The Three Traits Patients Find Most Engaging In Their Provider?  Check out our latest White Paper

The Link Between Patient Use Of Engagement Tools And The Physician-Patient Relationship
So What Does A Strong, “Engaging” Physician-Patient Relationship Look Like?

Here’s my short list;

• Patients and providers like, respect, and trust each other
• Patients and providers are interested in and take the time to listen to where each other is coming from, e.g., their beliefs, concerns, etc.
• There is a high degree of agreement between patients and providers as to the visit agenda, diagnosis, treatment, and self-care options.
• Providers’ employ patient-centered communication skills

Imagine yourself in a relationship with a provider who simply doesn’t seem to dedicate much time or place much importance on the above traits. How likely would you be to spend your valuable time-sharing personal health information with someone who has never exhibited any interest when you attempted to share the same information in the past?

The Take Away

Don’t get so wrapped up in the promise of the latest health information technologies that you lose sight of what’s really important to patient engagement, outcomes and patient/provider satisfaction – the physician-patient relationship

That’s what I think…what’s your opinion?

If you like this post you will love my White Paper on Patient Engagement send me your email and I get you a copy.