President at Berger Consulting, LLC, I help health care professionals help patients manage chronic illness (motivational interviewing) and build authentic relationships, 𝐊𝐄𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐑
I am dedicated to improving patient experience and outcomes. To get there, HCPs need 3 fundamental things: 1) enough time to interact with patients (staffing - a systems issue) 2) the mindset to want to interact with patients and authentically care about them 3) the appropriate skills to accomplish #2. I have had the opportunity to listen to hundreds of hours of recorded conversations between HCPs and patients (de-identifed). The vast majority of the HCPs really want to care for their patients. Too often though, they use very paternalistic language, focus on fixing problems rather than really listening to patients and how they are making sense of things (prerequisite to problem solving), and focus on what the patient isn't doing, rather than what the patient IS doing. For example, a patient with diabetes was taking her medication like clockwork, yet had not made lifestyle changes (better food choices, physical activity). Despite the patient protesting that "I take the medicine every day!", the HCP did not acknowledge or explore why that was important to her (what motivated her to do so), but instead told her she needed to eat healthier and get more exercise. You could hear the contempt in her voice and he slowly became more and more paternalistic. Accomplishing #3 requires training and practice. We're kidding ourselves if we don't think so. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Great points, Bruce Berger, PhD. We live in a time where the skill of listening well is not developed/appreciated much. Much good could be accomplished if we would truly listen to our patients and learn to communicate in a non-paternalistic way.
Agree Bruce. Taking the time is a challenge...leadership has to invest in their workers, or the patient experience will continue to deteriorate.
Bruce, I’m convinced that a compelling and credible, connect-the-dots financial case has to be made that aligns with current financial incentives in order to have the chance to even get a conversation started about the kinds of changes that you and David Dibble are so rightly advocating. Even then, it will be an uphill battle due to resistance to change and incentives to protect and defend the existing system and status quo at all costs, but there is a case to be made here, I believe.
To improve the Patient Experience, we must first improve the Health Care Provider Experience. Let's use Motivational Interviewing to enhance a provider's motivation through understanding their own motivations, listening with empathy and empowering them to reconnect to their purpose and why they got into medicine in the first place.
What say, Thomas (Tom) Dahlborg 🙏🏼 ❤️ 🙏🏼 , Shawn Nason , Lonnie Hirsch ,David Dibble , Valerie Choniuk, MPA-HCA, CPXP?
Healthcare Change Advocate / Pharmacy Manager / Entrepreneur / Pharmacist/ Pharmacologist
1yTime. 100% time. I have been a Pharmacist for over 14 years. I have worked in 2 pharmacies that are workflow efficient who have cleared the pharmacist time for clinical intervention. I have also worked at 1 that was extremely inefficient and had pharmacists running like 🐔 chickens. My impact and relationship building with time, hands down wonderful. Without time - I was cheering when patients moved their care elsewhere. Without time, there cannot be effective relationship building. Without relationship building there cannot be care. (*I think I need to dedicate a post to this)