The challenges in achieving effective communication among patients, families, and clinicians continue to be varied and multifaceted. According to Dr. Randall W. Porter, neurosurgeon at Barrow Brain and Spine in Phoenix, AZ, and founder of Medical Memory, “Communication between doctors and patients is essential for the effective delivery of healthcare. However, there is often a mismatch between clinicians’ level of communication and patients' level of comprehension.”
It is estimated that patients and their families retain 30 to 40 percent of what they are told during a clinical visit, which means they forget 60 to 70 percent of the information critical to their care. Ineffective communication appears as a risk factor in claims and lawsuits with discouraging frequency despite our best efforts. Adam Rapp in his blog post on eMedCert echoes risk and claims when he states that, “Simply put, there is no element more important to avoiding a malpractice claim than a healthy doctor-patient relationship built on clear and effective communication between one another.”
We believe there is a case to be made for using video to bridge the communication/comprehension gap to facilitate patient and family engagement and improve outcomes. That is why CAP has partnered with Medical Memory to offer CAP members resources to support the physician-patient relationship and meet the challenges of achieving effective communication among all members of the healthcare team.
Communication Challenges
Let’s look briefly at the challenges that can interfere with achieving effective communication among patients, families, and clinicians. Dr. Porter cites emotionally charged discussions. Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler describe crucial conversations in which the stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong.
Health literacy – rather the lack of it – plays a key role in the mismatch between what the physician says and what the patient and family understand. The use of complex medical terminology, combined with the presentation of a large amount of new information in a stressful environment, is a recipe for poorly informed or uninformed decision-making, lack of adherence to a treatment program, and sub-optimal outcomes. The 2016 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality notes the persistent disparities in access to care and care coordination. Effective communication plays a role in mediating these disparities.
Communication challenges such as those described above directly affect creating and multiplying risk. To quote Dr. Porter again, “The implications of poor doctor communication are many and can include: non-compliance, dissatisfaction, unnecessary readmissions,
poor health outcomes, litigation, and costly medical care.” Dr. Porter and his colleagues have been confronting these challenges directly since 2009. They began with the clinical office visit in neurosurgery and expanded to obstetrics and orthopedics. Medical Memory was founded in 2009 and has grown to offer products and services in the key areas of the informed consent process and post-hospital discharge.
The Medical Memory Approach
In Dr. Porter’s experience, patients who understand their physicians are more likely to acknowledge their health problems, understand their treatment options, modify their behavior accordingly, follow their medication schedules, and achieve better outcomes.
In 2014, Medical Memory launched its HIPAA-compliant system, allowing providers to record their clinical consultations. Since then, survey results have shown that patients watched their video multiple times, and the vast majority shared their video with a family member, friend, or other physician. Patients also reported that having the video made them feel more at ease with their medical problem and more trusting of their provider.
In 2017, Medical Memory launched Medical Memory Inform, which was created to help providers mitigate risk and improve practice efficiencies. Medical Memory Inform is a library of pre-recorded content, including informed consent videos, conflict disclosure videos, preoperative and postoperative instructional videos, and "welcome to my practice" videos. Content is easily customizable to a practice and Medical Memory offers options to use content it has created or to work with Medical Memory to create content that is important to a particular practice.
With the consent and disclosure videos, Medical Memory tracks that:
- The patient watched the entire video and digitally consented that he or she understood the information presented; and
- The number of times the patient watched or shared the video with others.
The Impact of Medical Memory
With increased understanding come feelings of confidence and competence in managing the anxieties and expectations associated with needing medical care, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes. Having the Medical Memory Inform and clinical videos as reference points after a visit, the patient and family are reminded of their own roles in the patient’s healthcare. Patients, families, clinicians, and staff share goals and responsibilities.
Dr. Porter founded Medical Memory and subsequently delivered healthcare’s first enterprise cloud-based video patient engagement solution with a singular commitment to improve patient comprehension, satisfaction, and trust. He says, “I knew immediately how inefficient it was for physicians and their staffs to have the same conversation over and over again. I realized that a better, more efficient process would involve a video to record the clinical interactions and deliver pre-recorded content critical to the patient’s care.” First and foremost, healthcare is a human business – Medical Memory simply uses technology to deliver on this promise.
For information on a free 60-day trial of Medical Memory and other offers exclusive to CAP members, please visit www.themedicalmemory.com/cap-physicians. Or contact Julie Soukup at julie@themedicalmemory.com or 855-500-0051.
Carole Lambert is Vice President, Practice Optimization for the CAP. Questions or comments related to this article should be directed to clambert@CAPphysicians.com. The information in this publication should not be considered legal or medical advice applicable to a specific situation. Legal guidance for individual matters should be obtained from a retained attorney.