Extremes (?) to Get Doctors to Talk to Each Other
How To Get Doctors To Speak To One Another About Patient Care
A hushed silence falls over the vast group of dignitaries and ambassadors. A stern gentleman walks to the broadcast booth where two reports sit in anticipation. The gentleman hands an envelope to one of the reporters……
“The 2012 Nobel Peace Prize goes to……FRANCES HARMON! WONDERFUL!!! Jim, never in its history has the Nobel Peace Prize been awarded to a NURSE but I will tell you, she really does deserve it! I am sure this year’s candidates would agree that, while it is impressive to pen a peace treaty in the Middle East and disarm all the nuclear bombs all across the world, nothing can compare to what Ms Harmon accomplished this year!”
“Yes, Mike, I would have to agree with you there! While these accomplishments are great, none are greater than being able to bring two physicians to the table to discuss patient care.”
Okay, I admit that winning the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing physicians together to discuss a patient’s care may seem a bit over the top but, being given the assignment of “how to get MD’s to talk to one another” well, it would be easier for me to resurrect Jimmy Hoffa and the success of such an encounter would certainly deserve some form of recognition if the physicians actually do come together to talk about honest to goodness PATIENT care and NOT the engine in their Jaguar, their golf scores or their “business trip” to Fiji.
I was stumped by this assignment so I went straight to the source, the doctors themselves, and asked them “how would someone go about bringing physicians together to discuss patient care?” I even gave them a scenario of a patient who requires the consult of a neurologist to determine if the patient has an inoperable brain tumor or just a neuroma.The response was interesting. I had a captive audience as we were at a conference and the physicians were essentially trapped in the fine city of Ontario, CA.
Each physician I spoke to had the perception that they were easily accessible to their colleagues and communication freely flowed whether it be in the form of chart documentation, dictated reports or telephonically.
Taking it one step further I casually chatted about their busy schedules. We talked about sending consults to ordering physicians and reading the consults once they were received. After the casual discussion they admitted the following: 1) they usually cannot read the handwriting of their colleagues as a result, they do not spend too much time reading notes in patients charts 2) if they request a consult and they receive the typed consult, they usually don’t have time to read the consult unless the patient brings it up during their appointment and 3) they rely heavily on their staff to remember to forward reports to ordering physicians as they often forget to forward the report themselves.
With regards to accessibility, they admit that this too can be a hit or miss proposition.
So how do you get physicians to talk to one another?
Though my methods were far from scientific, they did reveal several things. Physicians may possess the desire to communicate with colleagues, however, unless someone acts as a facilitator, the meeting of their minds may never occur.
A resourceful healthcare advocate can lay the groundwork for such an encounter by contacting both physician offices and speaking to the office manager in order to determine the best date and time for a telephonic meeting to occur. Once the time has been established, the advocate can provide the physicians with information about the patient to be discussed and the concerns to be addressed. A gentle reminder can be provided the week of the meeting to insure schedules have not been changed. Assuming the meeting is between the patient’s primary care physician (PCP) and a specialist, the advocate may request that the patient be permitted to sit in during the conference (at the PCP’s office) and that a recording of the meeting be permitted in order to provide both physicians a transcription of the meeting for their records.
A face-to-face meeting may also be arranged. In the case of a face-to-face meeting, the advocate may suggest a meeting at a common hospital and arrange the meeting at a time when both physicians may be at the hospital during their rounds. As more and more facilities are utilizing the services of Hospitalists, a face-to-face meeting may be more difficult to arrange as fewer and fewer physicians perform rounds on their patients.
Whether telephonic or face-to-face, the success of the meeting will rely on the organizational and coordination skills of the Advocate. When such a collaborative effort is successful, it is the patient who comes out the winner and the physicians who receive the noble prize of providing optimal patient care.
© 2011 by Frances Harmon for Healthcare-information-Guide.com
All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Frances Harmon/Healthcare-Information-Guide.com.
(This article was written as part of class assignments for a Healthcare Advocacy course.)
