Hospitalists are an asset to hospitals and acute care facilities. On the practice side, hospitalists can improve practice protocols, innovations, and workflows. From the patient side, hospitalists can reduce their length of stay, enhance continuity of care, and reduce risks to safety and mortality.
While the benefits of working with a hospitalist — as a patient or a practice owner — are undeniable, communication skills are essential for success. Here are some effective strategies for hospitalists to improve their communication skills and ensure continuity of care.
Use Specialty-specific Software
Hospitalists face unique challenges in their role that hospital employees do not— namely, acting as a one-person show. Hospitalists are responsible for not only providing patient care, but managing hospitalist coding, administration, billing, and communications.
In a practice setting, physicians are advised to delegate anything that’s not patient-centric. Hospitalists don’t have that ability. Choosing the right tools to streamline patient progress note-taking, coding, billing, communications, and follow-up ensures a hospitalist can focus on their caseload and minimize gaps in communication.
This consideration is integral for acute care specialists in highly nuanced fields. Choosing a tool that can account for those coding complexities is indispensable.
Take a Collaborative Approach
Many hospitalists pursue this career path for independence and flexibility. Yet, while it’s an independent role, nothing happens in a vacuum; collaboration and teamwork are crucial.
Hospitalists spend brief periods with their patients. Visits after the initial consultation could last for mere minutes. As such, they must learn to trust and rely on the broader care team for guidance and information.
Hospitalists work with care coordinators, nurses, practitioners, pharmacists— everyone who has a hand in their patient’s care. Taking the time to build a rapport and establishing trusting relationships with colleagues makes a significant difference in communication.
Take the time each day to touch base with the nurses after rounds and ensure everyone understands the care plan. Connect with the care team before discharging patients and ask everyone to share their insights and concerns.
Creating a communicative environment is the foundation for improving the quality of patient care. If that foundation isn’t already established, model the behavior you expect to see.
Adopt a Growth Mindset
Hospitalists are often viewed as leaders and experts in their field. While this is accurate, a true leader knows that there’s always room to learn and grow.
A fixed mindset is resistant to change and believes they’ve learned everything they can. Mistakes are viewed as unfixable failures. Conversely, a growth mindset embraces change and understands there are always opportunities for improvement. Mistakes are viewed as lessons and chances for growth.
Adopting a growth mindset— especially as a new hospitalist— is essential for improving communication. It leaves you open to feedback and embracing new processes and innovations as you navigate your career. With a growth mindset, you know there’s always room to do better.
Understand Your Patient’s Literacy
Intelligence is not measured by what you know, but whether you can communicate it so anyone can comprehend a concept. The first step in this endeavor is to learn how to read your patient and assess their health literacy.
This tactic can be especially challenging for hospitalists who typically have brief interactions and patient relationships. As such, an acute care specialist must be able to assess and pivot within a few minutes of meeting a patient.
Patients with poor health literacy or understanding rarely speak up about it. There’s shame and stigma, especially for people from underprivileged socioeconomic backgrounds.
The Partnership for Clear Health Communications created the “Ask Me 3” campaign in response to this pervasive issue. The campaign is built around three fundamental questions that doctors should answer for patients:
- What is the main problem?
- What does the patient need to do?
- Why is it important to do this?
Simplifying medical jargon and meeting patients at their level is essential to improve understanding, advice adherence, and longevity.
Use the Teach-back Method
As mentioned, patients aren’t quick to speak up when they don’t understand something. Physicians who ask, “Do you understand?” are often met with a simple affirmative even when that’s not the case.
The teach-back method is an active way to ensure patients and their caregivers understand the information you’ve shared. The basis of this method is to ask open-ended questions rather than close-ended questions like, “Do you have any questions?” Instead, physicians ask the patient to explain it back to them.
Start by summarizing and simplifying the information, avoiding medical jargon as much as possible. Then, ask the patient to explain it back to you. For example:
“This is a new diagnosis with a lot of complexity, and it’s important to understand. Can you explain in your own words what [your condition] means?”
If the patient doesn’t understand or misses some information, explain the concept in a different way or fill in the gaps. Continue this process until you’re confident that the patient understands.
Start With a Warm Introduction
First impressions are everything, especially for vulnerable patients who should feel comfortable sharing highly personal information. As hospitalists typically have less time with a patient, creating a warm introductory routine is vital for building trust and facilitating open communication.
When you visit a patient, they’ll want to know who you are, if you know what you’re doing, and if you can help them. You can answer all three of those questions with a warm introduction.
Start by telling them your name (and showing them if possible) and your role as an acute care provider. Talk about your experience and the work you’ve done so far in reviewing their case. Then, ask them permission for their time and input to showcase autonomy and patient empowerment.
Subtle touches like direct eye contact, sitting at their level, and leaning in demonstrate your interest and compassion. While these considerations seem simple and intuitive, they’re easily lost in the rush of the day.
Final Thoughts
Hospitalists have the opportunity to enhance a patient’s quality of care and health outcomes. Communication is the basis of those efforts and plays a core role in the patient experience.
