Why Compassionate Communication Matters

Posted: Mon, Jul 7, 2014 08:39

When I think of physicians, I think of what an amazing, wonderful occupation and profession they have. I especially admire the tremendous skill and capability of providers who offer good medical care and a compassionate experience. It’s not always easy, but’s it’s always important.

Let’s all keep in mind that “Communication with Doctors” isn't just about physicians (or it would be called “Communication BY Doctors”). Domain owners include leadership, the chief medical officer, chief medical executive, key medical staff, chief nursing officer, nurse manager, supervising nurses, doctors, mid-levels, hospitalists, and other providers

Consider This:

How many of you believe that:

• Patient satisfaction is important?
• Providing higher levels of productivity means sacrificing patient satisfaction?
• Only disgruntled patients fill out surveys?
• Practicing medicine would be great – if only there were no patients!

I’d wager that most of you agree with at least one of these points, and I’m here to tell you: patient satisfaction is paramount; we have to find a way to provide a first class patient experience without sabotaging services; and patients would be less disgruntled if service was better. If your patient experience at your facility resembles the customer experience at a car wash or the Department of Motor Vehicles, you’ve got a serious problem. There is no room for an “in-and-out” attitude in the field of Medicine - you want to be the kind of physician who leads with compassionate communication, because

• it provides loving kindness,
• it creates loyalty from the patients,
• and it prevents lawsuits.

Loyal patients share critical information more readily; you can diagnose them more accurately, and they comply more easily your therapies, regimens, orders, and (not unimportantly) they refer more patients to you and your hospital. That’s an amazing return on your efforts to improve communication.

But how do we nurture patient loyalty? It’s an endless struggle. If only we knew what patients thought, what they wanted… Wait a minute - we do! The HCAHPS survey tells us that patients want three things from doctors: skillful manners, skillful listening, and skillful teaching.

Pretty simple, right? I think so too.

The Take Away:

Perception = Deception! The way we see ourselves may not be the way our patients or their families see us. You can’t read the label if you are inside the bottle. You can’t be objective about yourself when you are delivering a service; it’s not possible. Maybe we ought to look at a new rule for hospital life: we all need to always try to be a little kinder than necessary.

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