"Patient-centered communication is defined as healthcare that establishes a partnership among practioners, patients, and their families (when appropriate) to ensure that decisions respect patients’ wants, needs, and preferences and that patients have the education and support they need to make decisions and participate in their own care.”
(Mazor KM, et al. Assessing Patient-Centered Communication in Cancer Care: Stakeholder Perspectives. J Oncol Pract. 2013;9:e186-e193)
Background:
This statement highlights the enormous importance of effective communication between patients and medical staff. However, the focus on related standards and their actual implementation require significant improvement. Some guidelines already contain a number of precise proposals to describe specific processes to support HCPs in communicating with patients, but there is a lack of methods and techniques that would facilitate their actual implementation: in part because the medical staff lacks time and communication skills or empathy.
This leads to the following questions:
- How can we ensure open, individual, respectful communication between healthcare professionals and patients - from initial diagnosis to finding suitable treatment options and discussing palliative care (by telephone, in person, via digital channels)?
- How can we maximize the quality of the information provided to the patient?
- How can we avoid and more quickly identify psychosocial stress symptoms such as emotional imbalance and patient insecurity?
- How can we make more effective therapy decisions and empower patients to improve their own quality of life?
How can we bridge communication barriers between patients and the care team?
