Physicians Practice says that effective communication is essential for delivering quality patient care, and building good physician-patient relationships based on compassion and shared respect. Clear, accurate, and timely communication is absolutely essential to maximizing performance, improving patient outcomes, and decreasing risk exposure, and, in turn, leads to improved patient safety, increased patient satisfaction, and stronger teams. But with HMOs and hospitals focused more on numbers, today’s average visit lasts only 15 minutes as doctors are forced to reduce the amount of time spent with each patient in order to meet a specific patient quota per day. It is, therefore, critical to ensure effective communication between patients and healthcare providers is occurring efficiently, regularly, and via multiple channels.
Medical advice is most typically relayed verbally –– but that is not always the most effective method of communication. A research study recently published in the British Journal of Nursing found that people remember only about 40% of what they hear, but recall 70% of the written information that they see. And the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine found that in a healthcare environment, the contrast can be even more striking –– with spoken medical instructions, only 14% of the information was remembered correctly, compared with over 80% when pictographs were used.
Written information is better remembered and leads to better treatment adherence. And although written instructions can present difficulties for non-native speaking patients and those in the low-education/literacy sector, utilizing other options such as cartoons, have shown improved adherence to wound-care advice in the same patients recently released from emergency care. And those who received cartoon instructions, not only displayed better compliance, but answered more questions about their care correctly as well.
As a physician, it is crucial to use every tool at your disposal for effective communication with your patients. Expand your physician-patient communication by using cutting-edge tools like the Clarus Healthboard. Replacing traditional whiteboards, the truly innovative Clarus Healthboard is an anti-bacterial, dry erase board made of glass. Designed specifically for the demanding needs of today’s healthcare industry, the Healthboard is offered with ColorDrop print technology – a proprietary printing process exclusively by Clarus, and Transition – a removable graphic panels system. And with Healthboard by Clarus, you never risk patient confidentiality or incorrect treatment directions problematical with ghosted, dirty whiteboards
Communicate more effectively with your patients by stepping up to Healthboard. To learn more, visit www.clarus.healthcare today.
