There has been lots of talk about Health IT's "central role" in getting patients more engaged in their own health care. The National eHealth Collaborative, now a part of HIMSS, even went so far as to propose a patient engagement framework built entirely around...
When it comes to delivering truly patient-centered care…how are providers supposed to know when they have “arrived”? According to Michael Berry, MD, President of the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation, providers will know they have achieved the “pinnacle of...
In a word...no. It has been said that a physician’s patient communication skills are just as important as their clinical knowledge. After all, it is only by “talking to and listening patients” that physicians are able to accurately diagnose and treat their...
I talk with lot of physicians about the need to improve the quality of communications between physicians and patients. Regular followers of my work will know that I am an advocate for the adoption of patient-centered communication skills by the physician and...
The following is s post by Carolyn Thomas, a fellow 2012 Stanford Medicine X e-patient scholar, which she wrote for her award-winning blog Heart Sisters. Imagine that your daughter is preparing for a junior ski race. It’s five minutes before the start of the race....
“I don’t have the time to talk to patients…I don’t get reimbursed for that.” This is an all too common refrain from primary care physicians and practice managers when ever the subject of improving physician-patient communications comes up. I get it. Primary care...
If "lack of time" is the chief barrier to better (aka patient-centered) physician-patient communications, it logically follows that longer patient appointments are the solution. Ok…lets’ say that I could wave a magic wand and add 5 or even 10 more minutes to the...