Stephen Wilkins MPH of Mind The Gap recently announced the Adopt One! Challenge. The Challenge, to be launched later the Fall, is encouraging physicians across the U.S. to commit to adopting one new patient-centered communication skill in 2014. If you’re interested in participating, you can sign up here.
We encourage doctors considering direct care to look into the training. Our model is designed to free up time to communicate with our patients. But, as doctors who are highly specialized (and in certain cases, supremely jaded), we can be heavy handed in how we explain concepts. It takes skill to to imagine yourself sitting on the gurney opposite you, and portray both a condition and any behavior modifications (exercise, diet, etc.) in a way they’ll understand and react positively to.
Wilkins is a former hospital executive, consumer health behavior researcher and recent care giver advocating the healing power of trusted relationships between doctors and patients. His Adopt One! Challenge program relies primarily on audio recordings of physician sessions–called conversation analysis–a method Wilkins claims to be superior to “patient satisfaction surveys like HCAHPS which are not very prescriptive.”