One of the most interesting parts of the TEDMED Google Hangout on how to dispel health care myths were the exchanges that revolved around how physicians and patients could improve their interactions. Trust is essential to improving patient engagement but that’s required on both sides. The level of interest patients demonstrate in their own health and a lack of understanding of the point of view their patients bring with them.
Physicians need to work to understand their patients perspective. Myths such as needing to drink eight glasses of water a day, cold weather increases risk of sickness and vaccines as a source of autism tend to come from people perceived as authority figures from parents to celebrities. The vaccine issue dominated the conversation, which isn’t surprising considering the tremendous risk it has created after so many years of reducing incidents of measles and mumps in the U.S.
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Here are five insights to boost trust and improve patient-physician relationships.
Andrew Holtz (@HoltzReport) health and health care journalist and author from Holtz Report served as moderator for the four person panel.
The need for shared decision-making The idea is that there are decisions physicians are obligated to make — a fractured hip needs to be repaired, an appendicitis requires surgery. If patients know that the doctor is there as a guide to help patients make a decision rather than an omniscient God, it could improve collaboration. But shared decision-making also entails patients realizing that they have responsibility for their decisions. Patients need to spend as much time prepping for healthcare decisions as they do shopping for a TV, observed Rusty Hofmann (@rustyhofmannMD), a professor at Stanford School of Medicine and Chief of Interventional Radiology at Stanford’s Medical Center. Zackary Berger (@ZackBergerMDPhD), an internist and epidemiologist from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, offered a bit of controversy on the vaccine issue. He said, “I love vaccines and think they’re a huge public health achievement…But sometimes, when a patient makes the decision that they don’t want it and I have to let them walk away.”
Limits of medical knowledge Frequently, admitting to limits of medical knowledge can be frustrating for patients who might interpret it negatively. But it can be tough to read mammographies, admitted Hoffman. By having a better understanding of how doctors confer with each other to gather insights on a scan, patients might have more respect for the time it can take to reach a diagnosis.
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Physicians can’t compete with the Internet for pace and volume of info. As Rusty Hoffman observed during the chat: “It takes 17 years for medical research to become best practice. That’s a much slower pace than most news cycles. But by bringing questions from their Internet research to appointments, patients would demonstrate to physicians their level of interest in their condition. He did highlight a Wall Street Journal article in which Ezekiel Emanuel and Daniel Hayes analyzed the pros and cons of mammographies as an example of ways media can make complex medical issues more understandable.
Check your jargon at the door Rachel Vreeman (@rachelvreeman), an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, talked about the importance of physicians steering clear of medical jargon whenever possible. “As doctors, if we can’t convey information in a way everyone can understand, we aren’t helping anyone.”
Don’t look for easy answers on the Internet Andrew Holtz (@HoltzReport) raised an interesting point. The appeal of cool sounding medtech tends to draw away patients’ attention from more boring, low tech solutions to improve health. I think if you look hard enough you can find additional context for certain conditions and treatments. On a similar subject, James Garrow (@JGarrow) the Director of Digital Public Health for the city of Philadelphia pointed to the fact that it will post items on Twitter in favor of going through the press because
