Communicating in the Era of Patient-Centered Care
The days of “doctor knows best” are over. The way we communicate and interact with patients needs to change as well.
Patient-centered care is the concept that the patient’s wishes and desires for their individual health outcomes should drive how their care is discussed, enacted, and evaluated. The patient is a key member of the care team, alongside their doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. Consequently, the ability to communicate and interact collaboratively with patients in an effective and respectful manner is critical to providing adequate, if not excellent, care.
Traditionally, physicians were seen as the infallible medical experts with patients expected to obey the doctors’ orders. However, the explosion of instantly attainable (and sometimes questionable) medical information online necessitates a different approach. Patients are increasingly becoming more involved in learning about their health and coming into doctor’s offices having already scoured every website and article they could find about their symptoms. Physicians, and indeed all health providers, need to meet patients where they’re at (a concept core to harm reduction), understand their beliefs and understanding, and guide them to a shared set of clinical goals.
Physicians that are egotistical and arrogant, who dismiss questions and concerns expecting patients’ to just “trust them”, run the risk of alienating their patients. These physicians risk creating a hostile physician-patient relationship, and they risk forcing patients to disengage from the healthcare system altogether. Having unfortunately experienced these exchanges first-hand, I believe that these physicians are not compatible with the current standard of care.
However, not all negative interactions are due to bad physicians alone. The rapid rise of misinformation and disinformation online can put impressionable patients seemingly on the other side of a boxing ring when discussing aspects of their care. Ensuring that patients are not antagonized in these interactions can be especially difficult, even if essential in the model of patient-centered care.
Empathetically and respectfully communicating with patients can help providers better understand the relationship that patients have with their health care and how, as part of the healthcare system, we can provide effective supports and care options. For example, a treatment plan for someone who regularly uses Traditional Chinese Medicine needs to take into account the patient’s relationship with Western medicine in order to appropriately address the patient’s healthcare needs and goals. By building stronger relationships through patient-centered conversations, we can achieve improved health outcomes and greater patient satisfaction.
At a time when the public’s trust in institutions is on trial, healthcare providers of all stripes need to be able to engage patients to work collaboratively to achieve patient-centered goals and strengthen their trust and confidence in the very healthcare system that is meant to help them.
