Satisfaction With Provider Communication In Recent Study Is Lower In Patient Center-Medical Homes (PCMH) Than Non-PCMH

A recent blog headline on the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) recently caught my attention. It was entitled Patient Satisfaction With Medical Home Quality High. I was intrigued. I asked myself high compared to what? Non-PCMH practices?

The study, which appeared in the November-December 2013 Annals of Family Medicine, asked 4,500 patients (2009 Health Center Patient Survey) of federally-support health centers their perceptions of a number of “patient-centered quality attributes,” including the following measures which the study authors defined as patient-centered communication:

• Clinician staff listened to you?
• Clinician staff takes enough time with you?
• Clinician staff explains what you want to know
• Nurses and MAs answered your questions?
• Nurses and MAs are friendly and helpful to you?
• Other staff is friendly and helpful to you?
• Other staff answered your questions?

Observations About The Study

The first thing that struck me was that compared to patients in the 2012 CHAPS survey (AHRQ) website, patients in the 2009 study actually reported lower levels of 1) patient satisfaction (81% versus 91%) with their clinicians’ patient-centered attributes (including communication) and 2) willingness to recommend their providers (84% versus 89%).

The second thing I was reminded of is that patients themselves are so used to clinicians’ paternalistic, physician-directed communication style that simply allowing them to ask just one question puts the clinician in the top 5% of patient-centered communicators. Stop and ask yourself when the last time was that you encountered a physician that asked you what you thought about your medical condition? Until recently I never have been and I suspect few if any people in the study cited here have either.

[pullquote]Stop and ask yourself when the last time was that you encountered a physician that asked you what you thought about your medical condition? [/pullquote]

The final thing that struck me was that none of the quality measures used in the study captured the “essential and revolutionary meaning of what it means to be patient-centered.” As Street and Epstein point out, patient centered communication is about inviting the patient to get involved in the exam room conversation.

As articulated in hundreds of studies over the years, patient-centered communication skills include:

• Soliciting the patient’s story
• Visit agenda setting
• Understanding the patient’s health perspective
• Understanding the whole patient (biomedical and psychosocial)
• Shared decision-making
• Empathy

We Need To Raise The Bar For Patient-Centered Medical Homes (PCMH)

Studies like the one cited here set the quality bar (and bragging rights) way too low for PCMH. Patient-centered care has to be different than the paternalistic, physician-directed care we all seem so willing to accept. Such studies trivialize what it means for physicians and their care teams to be patient-centered in the way they relate to and communicate with people (aka patients). Patient-centeredness is a philosophy or care…and does not require team care, extended hours or care coordinators. These are great added features, but to equate such services with patient-centeredness misses the boat…something which professional groups like the PCPCC, NCQA, Joint Commission, and URAC should recognize by now.

The Take Away?

Here’s some thoughts:

1) We need to set the bar higher for PCMHs when it comes to how we define and measure patient-centered communication.

2) We need to find better ways to asses patient-centered communications in actual practice. Patient rating of a clinician’s patiient-centeredness are simply not enough. As part of the 2014 Adopt One! Challenge, we will be using audio recording of actual physician-patient exam room conversations to measure and benchmark clinicians’ patient-centered communication skills.

3) We should stop celebrating being average whether it be in PCMH setting or hospitals when it comes to physician-patient communications.
That what I think. What’s your opinion?

Sources:

Lebrun-Harris et al. Effects of Patient-Centered Medical Home Attributes On Patient’s Perception Of Quality In Federaly-Supported Health Centers. Annals of Family Medicine. 2013; 11:6; 508-516.
Street et al. The Value and Values of Patient-Centered Care. Annals of Family Medicine. 2011; 9; 100-103.

Death By A Thousand Cuts – Physicians’ Surprising Response To My Wife’s Lung Cancer Recurrence

This is a true story….

My wife was about to celebrate her 10th anniversary as a Stage IV Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer survivor (a pretty remarkable feat) when it happened.

It started out as a cough.  We had just returned from a family trip and assumed she had picked up a “bug” from one of the boys. It also “lite up” on her semiannual PET/CT scan down at MD Anderson as small dark masses where there weren’t supposed to be any. We all hoped the cough and the PET/Ct results was the result of a cold or allergy….it had happened before. Her medical oncologist, one of the top thoracic oncologists in the world, doubted a recurrence after 10 years.  But if it was a recurrence, he told us he would put my wife back on Tarceva, the oral chemo that had worked so well for her before.

But we were all wrong. Her lung cancer was back and appeared to have spread.  The cough escalated into a 24/7 serious hack-a-thon.  She couldn’t finish a sentence without coughing.  We avoided being around other people as the coughing got worse. My wife didn’t want “bother” people.  Nor did we want our family and friends to get the wrong impression….that my wife was dying. She had beaten the odds once and she would do it again we told ourselves.  Turns out we were the only ones that believed it.

Within the space of 2 months, my wife saw a local pulmonologist (we live in Northern California not Houston, Texas where MD Anderson is) to rule out any other causes for the cough.  She also kept two long-scheduled appointments with an endocrinologist and a cardiologist for issues unrelated to the cough or cancer.

That’s When I Noticed It – Every Physician My Wife Saw Acted As If She Would Be Dead Soon

To be sure none of my wife’s physicians ever said she was dying. But knowing something about the nuances of how physicians “communicate” with patients I could tell that’s what they were thinking.  After attending every one of her doctor’s appointments over the last 10 years you recognize the tell tale signs.   Neither the endocrinologist or cardiologist were familiar with my wife or her condition as these were our first visit to both.  But they clearly could not get past her coughing.  They politely cut short the initial appointment and told my wife to contact them after the lung cancer had been dealt with.  You have bigger problems than a thyroid nodule or a rapid heartbeat they told us.

Mind you my wife was concerned enough (let’s say she was engaged) about her thyroid nodule and heart health that she 1) made the appointment to be seen and 2) actually kept the appointment because she/we believed that she would be around long enough to have to deal with these problems sometime.

The pulmonologist, after ruling out allergies or infectious disease as the cause of my wife’s cough, threw up his hands in apparent defeat and said “your cancer’s back and there’s nothing more I can do for you. “ He referred us to a local a local thoracic surgeon in order to get her cancer re-biopsied before starting chemo.

The thoracic surgeon, like the other doctors, couldn’t deal with my wife’s coughing and shortness of breath which was pretty bad by now.  Rather than come up with a definitive plan of action regarding the biopsy, the surgeon hemmed and hawed about the different approaches to doing the lung biopsy – one more invasive than the other.  The surgeon gave me the distinct impression that the biopsy in the long run wouldn’t matter given the apparent seriousness of my wife’s condition.  He promised to discuss the biopsy options with my wife’s oncologist the next day and call us with the “game plan.”  The doctor never called us back.

By this time it was 5:00 pm on a Friday afternoon.  We felt we had already wasted too much time between the pulmonologist and the thoracic surgeon and my wife started her oral chemo at 5:01 pm.  We immediately felt better because at least we were finally doing something positive to address my wife’s problem.  Anything is preferable to watching sympathetic physicians, nurses, office staff, radiology techs, etc.  shake their heads saying to themselves “poor woman” doesn’t have long to live.

Post Script

Within 10 days of starting her oral chemo, my wife’s cough and shortness of breath completely disappeared.  After 2 months of being on Tarceva the first follow up the first PET/CT scan revealed what the radiologists called a significant response to the treatment.

Not bad for someone whom so many clinicians had written off!

The Take Away

Physicians need to be aware of the fact that they both bring pre-existing attitudes and biases to the office visit…and check them at the door.  These attitudes and beliefs color the decisions clinicians make.  The extent to which clinicians inform patients of all their diagnosis and treatment options, engage patients in shared decision making, or decisions as to how aggressively treat the patient’s condition are all influenced by physician’s beliefs and attitudes.

Lung cancer that presents as a bad cough is like a red flag to a bull. It invokes a whole set of assumptions about 1) how the person got the disease (you must have been a smoker) and 2) the person’s odds of survival – slim to none.

You have to wonder how many people’s lives are cut short or whose care is not what it should be simply because their doctor jumped to the wrong conclusions.

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

Do You Really Believe That 41% Of People Would Switch Physicians To Gain Online Access To Their EMR?

I love survey data as much as the next person. But some of the survey data finding its way into the health care press these days is pure baloney…which is good if you like baloney.

Such was the case with the finding from an Accenture study which was making the rounds of the Health Information Technology (HIT) Journals, HIT Blogs and Twitter feeds during National Health IT Week. You will no doubt recall the headlines which proclaimed that “41% of U.S. consumers would be willing to switch physicians to gain online access to their own EMRs.”

Upon first glance, the question of “would you be willing to switch physicians” to accomplish a social good (access to your electronic medical records) seems reasonable enough. It’s one of those questions that most of us would be inclined to agree with. It’s kind of like asking people if they would be willing to pay lower taxes or pay less to fill up your car’s gas tank. Of course we will say yes.

In the Accenture study literally everyone did! Remember 36% of respondents said they already had full access to their EMR (whatever full access means), 27% said they had limited EMR access and 37% said they did not yet have any EMR access. So if 41% said they would switch physicians to get EMR access we are left to conclude that all 100% of those without EMR access would switch…plus 4% of those who already had EMR access would also switch doctors presumably because they wanted more EMR access.

At face value, this Accenture data does not hold water…and here are a couple of reasons why.

• 79% of people (patients) are already very satisfied with their personal physician (patients who rated their physician 9-10 on the 10 point 2012 CHAPS survey released recently by AHRQ. Very satisfied patients are not likely to switch physicians unless they have a darn good reason and access to Health IT is not a good enough reason for most people.
• People’s criteria for selecting a new physician focus on human interaction skills and clinical competencies – not the physician’s use of EMRs and other Health IT (i.e., PHRs, web portals, etc.).
• Similarly, people’s reasons for switching physicians have to do with changes in insurance, relocation, and the physician’s human interaction skills…not the lack of an EMR, PHR or patient portal.
• 100% of people can’t agree on anything including EMRs – intuitively we know that seniors (who have the highest health care need/use) have a higher trust in their physicians and are less inclined to care one way or another about Health IT, other people worry about personal data security and so on.
• A 2012 survey by the Markle Foundation found that “79 percent or more of the public believe using an online PHR would provide major benefits to individuals in managing their health and health care services.” Yet actual consumer adoption of online PHRs has been less than 10% for the last several years (with some notable exceptions like Kaiser, Group Health and the VA). There’s a big difference between what people believe or say they are willing to do…and what they actually do.

The Take Away

What people actually do or intend to do (behavioral intentions) are much stronger and reliable predictors of behavior (switching physicians for example) than attitudinal questions about their beliefs or potential willingness to do something in the future in relation to other behaviors they could engage in. The Accenture study would have been more instructive had it asked respondents to rate the importance of Health IT (EMR) in relation to other physician selection factors like the physician interpersonal skills, their knowledge and experience, etc. It would also be helpful for Accenture to inquire as to the respondent’s knowledge of EMRs and what constituted full versus limited access…and which is addresses the consumer’s level of interest and need.

The Adopt One! Challenge – The First Step To Better Patient Engagement & Patient Experiences

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  Or in the case of the Adopt One! Challenge…by encouraging physicians across the U.S. to commit to adopting one new patient-centered communication skill in 2014.

Anyone who has followed my work here on Mind the Gap knows that I am passionate about improving the way physicians and their care teams talk to and interact with patients. My passion stems both from my personal experiences as a health care executive, a patient advocate and patient.  I honestly believe that if we could improve how doctors and patients talk with one another beginning in the exam room we would fix much of what is broken with today’s health care system.

“I have discovered that the biggest problem with physician-patient communications is the illusion that it ever occurred! “

Many physicians readily admit that their patient communication skills need work. But when faced with a burdensome daily practice schedule they make do with the physician-directed patient communication skills they learned in medical school. Besides…most physicians operate under the mistaken impression that patient-centered communications – the alternative to physician-directed communications – takes too much time and requires longer visits.

So How Will The Adopt One Challenge Fix Things?

The Challenge, to be launched later the Fall, is designed to accomplish three objective – behavioral objectives modeled after the Health Belief Model. These three objectives are:

• Help physicians understand that their patient communication skills are not all they could be
• Show physicians how their lack of patient-centered communication skills is a barrier to their ability to effectively engage and activate patients or to provide exceptional patient experiences
• Serve as a “Call to Action” to prompt physicians to take action to improve their patient-centered communication skills

Here’s how the Adopt One! Challenge will accomplish these objectives:

Help physicians understand that their patient communication skills are not all they could be

Using audio recordings provided by participating physicians a team of independent, trained professionals will identify, measure and assess the patient communication skills employed by each physician. This research method – called conversation analysis – is the same method used in medical school. Unlike patient satisfaction surveys like HCAHPS which are not very prescriptive, the Challenge will provide participants with objective, detailed and actionable findings and recommendations.

Show physicians how their lack of patient-centered communication skills is a barrier to their ability to effectively engage and activate patients or to provide exceptional patient experiences

In addition to measuring and assessing their patient communication skills, each physician’s patient communication skills will be benchmarked against patient-centered best practices.

Over 30 years of research has linked the use of specific, patient-centered communication skills to more productive visits, increased patient engagement, better patient health outcomes, lower health care use and superior patient experiences.  By comparing physicians’ skills against these “best practices” we show them how their communication practices may be affecting patients, their practice and the organizations they work for or with.  We also show them which communication skills they may want to focus on improving.

Serve as a “Call to Action” to prompt physicians to take action to improve their patient-centered communication skills

The Challenge serves as a concrete call to action to physicians to take a specific action to learn a new patient-centered communication skill over the course of 12 months.  This call to action will require participants to 1) commit in writing to adopt/develop one new patient-centered communication skill of their choosing and 2) provide them with access to online training and resources needed to help them learn that new communication skill.

Because the Adopt One! Challenge is expected to become an annual event, participating physicians can measure their year-over-year progress as they add new patient-centered communication skills.

In future posts I will share more about the Adopt One! Challenge. In these future posts I will profiling members of the Adopt One! Challenge Advisory Board as well as the Partners that are making the Challenge possible.

The Adopt One! Challenge is Free To Individual Physicians.

If you are interested in offering the Adopt One! Challenge to all the physicians in your provider network?  E-mail us at contact@adoptonechallenge.com.

Is The CEO Of The Cleveland Clinic Serious When He Says “No More Passive Patients”?

If a recent blog post by the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic is representative of how health care executives (and physicians) really think about patients – aka consumers –aka people like you and me…we are all in big trouble.  In it Delos Cosgrove, MD, talks about how under health care reform there will be “No more passive patients.”

Here’s my a quote from the post by Delos Cosgrove, MD:

“For too long, healthcare has been something that was done to you. Now it’s going to be something you do for yourself in partnership with your doctor and care giving team. You’ll need to monitor your food input, get exercise, and avoid tobacco. ”

Let’s examine what’s disturbing about comments like this particularly when made by high-profile leaders like Dr. Cosgrove.

First, this statement is factually inaccurate.  Here’s why.  82% of US adults visit their PCP every year at least once a year (often more) for their health.   Think about the trip to the doctor’s office from the patient’s perspective… 1) chances are they have discussed their health problem or concern with family members or friends, 2) they may well have looked up information on their condition to see if it merits a doctor’s visit, 3) they make the appointment, 4) they show up for the appointment and 5) wait in the waiting and exam room thinking about the questions they want to ask their physician.

What about any of this suggests patient passivity?

Second, this statement misrepresents the true nature of the patient passivity of which Dr. Cosgrove speaks.  You see patients (aka people) are socialized by physicians beginning in childhood visits with Mom to the pediatrician to assume a passive sick role.  We are supposed to be passive! Otherwise the doctors gets irritated and ignores or dismisses what we have to say.  While it’s true that patients (even the most empowered among us) ask very few important questions during the typical office exam…the reason isn’t that we are passive.  Rather it’s because we don’t want to be too assertive, confrontational, and argumentative or are simply afraid.

Rather that blaming patients for not being more engaged…why don’t doctors try and become more engaging (e.g., patient-centered) to patients?

Third, patient non-adherence is often not the patients fault…but rather the result of poor communications on the clinician’s part. One recent study found that 20% of medication non-adherence is the direct result of poor physician communication with patients. Poor patient communication skills top the list of complaints people have with their doctor. Poor patient communication is also the leading cause of medical errors, non-adherence and poor patient experiences.

Fourth, how exactly are patients going to learn all the skills necessary to “do everything” for themselves?  The work of Lorig et al. has shown that simply providing patients with information – the “what” of self care – is not enough to change patient health behavior.  Patients also need and want to develop the skills and self efficacy for self care management – the “how” of self care.   Right now for example clinicians spend on average <50 seconds teaching patients how to take a new medication…and we wonder why patients are non-adherent.

Given the poor patient communication skills of physicians today how exactly are patients supposed to learn how to do it all themselves?

Finally, the Dr. Cosgrove reminds us of the kind of paternalistic, physician-directed thinking and communications which has gotten the health care industry into the mess it’s in.

The following statement says it all:

“If your doctor prescribes a medication, preventive strategy, or course of treatment, you’ll want to follow it.”

What if I don’t want the medication or don’t believe it will help me? Why should I be forced to do something I don’t want to do? Will you drop me as a patient?
What happened to the IHI’s Triple Aims?  What about the need to be more patient-centered as called for in Crossing the Quality Chasm and the ACA reform legislation?

I am sorry if I seem to come down hard on Dr. Cosgrove. But my original point remains…too many health care leaders still think and talk like this.  While they may “talk the talk”…employees, patients and physicians all see how such leaders “walk the talk.“  And as Cosgorove’s comments suggest we have a long, long way to go.

I would like to extend an invitation to Dr. Cosgrove and the physicians at the Cleveland Clinic to see just how “patient-centered” their communication skills really are by participating in the Adopt One! Challenge.   You will not only be able to assess the quality of your team’s patient communication skills but also see how their skills compare to industry best practices.

All physicians are invited to participate in the Adopt One! Challenge.

That’s my opinion…what’s yours?