Clinician-Patient Communication

The Clinician Patient Communication workshop is a one day course designed to improve communication. The workshop employs the Institute for Healthcare Communication material, exercises and workbook. The materials have been successfully taught and employed throughout the country.

The Institute for Healthcare Communication gives the following description of the course:

Overview: Until recently medical training paid little attention to the development of communication skills. The relationship of communication skills to important outcomes was not well known. Improved diagnostic accuracy, greater involvement of the patient in decision making and increased likelihood of adherence to therapeutic regimens are all outcomes of using effective communication strategies. Additional benefits are an increase in patient and clinician satisfaction and a reduced likelihood of malpractice litigation.

Clinicians may not have learned effective techniques to achieve these outcomes during their medical training. Some of the techniques may have been developed since the clinician was trained. The challenge is to introduce the techniques to clinicians and develop their skills in using the techniques in a brief period of time.

Program Description: "Clinician-Patient Communication to Enhance Health Outcomes" is offered as a full day workshop for groups with six to thirty participants. The workshop is a fast paced interactive program designed to provide participants with opportunities to practice skills and techniques, not simply hear about them. Instead of listening to didactic presentations, participants work individually and in teams to analyze videotaped re-enactments of actual cases, reach agreement on what was and was not effective in the cases, and then create responses that would be more effective. In the last activity, participants work together to develop approaches to patients they are currently working with. Finally, participants are asked to choose one or two techniques that they can immediately use in their practice settings.