Search our website
Contact Us
Downloads
Online Modules & Assessments
Legal Matters
 
 

Communication and Performance Improvement:

An intensive educational program aimed at
improving physician communication skills

Classroom Dates:
Saturday, March 1, 2008 - Sunday March 2, 2008

Boston, MA

For more information please contact Joanne Kelly at 617-636-4036


Unit I

Session 1 - Saturday March 1st 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Communicating with Patients:  Why Does it Matter and What’s the Evidence?
Faculty: Elizabeth Rider, MSW, MD - Unit I Leader
Educational Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
  • Define relationship-centered care
  • Summarize what the literature shows about common issues with communication in healthcare
  • Identify challenges to effective communication with patients and their families
  • Develop and implement a plan to improve a component of their practice that affects or involves communication
  • Describe the importance of communication and its evidence-based impact on clinical outcomes and patient and physician satisfaction
 
Building a Model for Effective Communication
Faculty: Elizabeth Rider, MSW, MD
Educational Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
  • Discusss what patients want from their doctors
  • Identify "essential elements" of good communication with patients and their families
  • Identify and discuss essential communication competencies that can increase interviewing efficiency and effectiveness
  • Apply an evidence-based model to enhance their communication with patients

 
 
The Patient's Perspective: Becoming a Culturally Sensitive Practitioner
Faculty: Maysel Kemp White, PhD
Educational Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
  • Demonstrate how to open a visit, elicit the patient's full spectrum of concerns and negotiate an agenda that is realistic given the allocated time
  • Apply relationship building skills(open-ended questions, reflections, short summaries, funneling) to assess the patient's story and health beliefs
  • Assess the patient's experience of illness
  • Respond to patients with empathy
  • Deliver a meaningful diagnosis using words the patient can understand
  • Explain why a patient's health beliefs may be inconsistent with the biomedical findings
 
The Patient's Voice: Shared Decision-Making and Reaching Agreement.
Faculty: Maysel Kemp White, PhD
Educational Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
  • Explain the options available to treat a health problem
  • Facilitate the patient's thinking in weighing options for treatment
  • Assess a patient's conviction and confidence in following a treatment plan
  • Tailor and collaborate on a treatment plan geared to the patient's particular lifestyle and motivation level
4:00 p.m. Adjourn
 
Session 2 - Sunday March 2nd 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon
The Patient's Concerns: Giving Bad News
Faculty: Walter F. Baile, MD
Educational Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
  • List the goals and objectives of a "bad news" interview
  • Apply a six-step protocol for giving badnews
  • Respond effectively to patient and family reactions to bad news
  • Identify common physician emotions as barries to giving bad news