Communication:Talk to your patient, it’s good for both

of you

Dr Steve Walsh

“Communication errors cause twice as many fatalities as inadequate clinical skills” Coiera

“Communication usually fails, except by accident” Wiio

Communication is good for your patient

Assess: Ask about behavioural health risks Advise: Give behaviour change advice Agree: Collaboratively select treatment

goals Assist: In acquiring skills, support, Rx Arrange: Follow-up visits

How you communicate strongly influences patients’ adherence to

your management plan

Communication is good for you “Oh, by the way …”

Communication is good for you 3 minutes longer

Communication is good for you Surgeons’ tone of voice

If the patient likes the doctor

His patients - mainly elderly women - were living alone and vulnerable. They adored their doctor, Harold "Fred" Shipman. Even when their contemporaries began dying in unusually high numbers, patients remained loyal to the murderous M.D. For as long as he spared them, his victims loved their doctor — to death.

Communication is good for you Do patients trust their

physicians?

Talk to your patient, it’s good for both of you

How you communicate strongly influences patients’ adherence to your management plan

Listen to your patient and interrupt less Good communication, tone of voice and

longer visits are correlated with fewer medico-legal claims

Wiio’ Laws of Communicaion

1. Communication usually fails, except by accident

2. If a message can be interpreted in several ways, it will be interpreted in a manner that maximizes the damage

3. There is always someone who knows better than you what you meant with your message

4. The more we communicate, the worse communication succeeds