8 Tips To Improving Communication Among Health Care Providers

Too often we hear organizations, hospitals, practitioners, and families wondering about effective ways to improving communication between primary care providers and specialists.  Here are 7 tips that I give to Dao Management Consulting Services clients, but first lets define communication within the realm of health care.

Communication is a broad term, it can mean different things to providers, depending from what angle they are looking at it.  Communication in health care can mean improving referral follow-up, providing reports to referring physicians, use care coordination as a vehicle to maintaining an open door relationship with multiple providers, and/or using tools such as communication logs, care plans to communicate with a specialist their patient's condition and treatment.

In a research conducted by Internal Medicine,  researchers found that perceptions of communication between physicians varied greatly.

• 69.3% of PCPs reported "always" or "most of the time" sending notification of a patient's history and reason for consultation to specialists, but only 34.8% of specialists said they "always" or "most of the time" received such notification.
• 80.6% of specialists said they "always" or "most of the time" send consultation results to the referring PCP, but only 62.2% of PCPs said they received such information.
• Physicians who reported not receiving timely communication were more likely to report that their ability to provide high-quality care was threatened. 

8 tips for greater communication:

1. Identify specific issues between providers from a broader perspective;
2. Understand providers practice culture;
3. Do not make assumptions about what providers need as tools to communicate with each other, ask;
4. Based on providers needs, create tools or systems that will facilitate "easy" communication;
5. Ask providers for feedback on strategies and their reaction to them;
6. Facilitate face to face meeting or virtual meeting between primary care and specialist;
7. Involve providers as part of their own system change;
8. Use care coordination as part of providers communication

Helen Dao, MHA
www.daoconsultingservices.com