Managing long-term conditions is easier when health care providers, patients and families can share information and understand each other. For instance, a doctor may prescribe a medicine, but doesn’t discuss side effects and costs with the patient and family. Perhaps the patient stops taking it because of troublesome side effects or because it’s too expensive, but doesn’t tell the doctor. In this example, patient and doctor are not on the same team. The physician thinks his treatment plan is in effect when it’s never really been tried.
Sharing information is key to working together to achieve the best health outcomes. Good communication skills allow patients and providers to understand and appreciate each other’s experience and knowledge. This may ultimately improve both the quality and safety of care
Encouraging Patients to Share
If patients keep records of how they’re doing, if they prepare for visits by writing down their questions and concerns, and share what they know about their condition, it will be much easier to work with them effectively. We can encourage them to do these things with “preparing for appointments” handouts or by making available sample symptom logs.
We can also encourage them verbally, by asking “What’s bothering you the most right now? What do you want help with today? Or more specific questions such as, How is that new medicine going? Asking a couple of open-ended questions and listening at the beginning will save you a lot of time at the end of an appointment.
Sharing What You Know
It’s useful to ask patients, “What do you want to know about this?” “Would you like to hear more about that?” You can also ask them how they would like to learn. “Would you like a brochure about your illness? Would you rather I gave you a little talk about it? Or would you rather just ask me some questions?”
We want to encourage patients to learn more for themselves. So it’s helpful to have a few web sites we can recommend to them to help with their particular issues. Frequently, general sites such as WebMD or Medlink are good choices.
More Tips on Information Sharing
- Information is most useful when personalized, linked to the patient’s expressed interests and values, and shared in small bits, followed by a discussion of what the patient has heard and understood. This sequence, that clinicians may know as “Assess, Tell, Assess” or “closing the loop” helps to insure that patients and clinicians truly understand each other.
- Providing patients with accurate and relevant evidence-based information about the illness and treatment options is key in the process of informed or shared decision-making. Decision aids are available in a variety of formats can enhance and facilitate this process.
- Patients’ understanding of complex conditions, treatment options and self-management choices are affected by language barriers and patients’ functional health literacy. Exploring health literacy issues with patients, providing translation services, and tailoring communication, educational materials and decision aids to the needs of populations served will lessen the impact. Information and education can be provided in a variety of formats, so that patients and families can choose the form that best suits their needs.
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