Effective Communication
So how many of us have had that conversation with a patient, and we walk away thinking, “Man, I just nailed that! That patient will start taking AREDs vitamins, and they are definitely going to stop smoking!”? We walk that patient to check out and just know because we are super doctors that they will purchase those vitamins we recommend. As we are heading to change the lives of our next patient, we hear that patient checking out, and they say to the staff member, “Well Dr. XXX just said I needed to start some vitamins for something. Hmm I think it was dry eye”. As a doctor, this happens too many times. It not only happens with patients, but it can also happen when communicating to staff. How do we be more effective with our communication?
Effective frequency is the term used to decide how many times a person actually has to hear your message before they will act on it. The Rule of 7, which most marketing companies live by, states that a person needs to hear a message 7 times before they will take action or buy a product. 7 times! So how in the world do we communicate effectively in a short time span for the patient to really understand what we are telling them?
There are three objectives that can easily help you achieve your goal of effective communication. The first is repetition. It is a great beginning to effective communication. It allows us to emphasize a point and adds to our power of persuasion. Repetition is very important when communicating a new idea or diagnosis that the patient needs to digest. We can tell the patient their diagnosis multiple times in the conversation. If the repeated diagnosis and treatment plan are delivered efficiently, the patient has time to digest the concept and retain it.
Another device for explaining diagnoses and treatments, which is my favorite, is using analogies. We all have heard and probably used the analogy for cataracts being a foggy lens of a camera. One of the most recent ones I learned about is one that our retina surgeon uses. It pertains to the description of macular degeneration. He tells the patient that having drusen is like having trash in the retina. He explains to the patient that the photoreceptors in their retina shed “gargage”, and the RPE are the “garbage men”. The garbage men are supposed to gobble up all the garbage, but as we age those garbage men become weaker. Those garbage men are like Popeye, so if we feed them spinach and their vitamins they will get strong again and do their job better. For the younger doctors, you may want to google Popeye. I can reassure you that the generation that has macular degeneration knows who Popeye is.
Lastly, visual aides help patients grasp the concepts by making an association between what they see and what they have been told. One of the prime visual aides I use in the office is the optomap. I remember practicing without it. I would tell the patient they had background diabetic retinopathy and go through this whole conversation of how vision threatening it was if they did not take their diet and medication regime seriously. Realistically that patient felt relatively fine and their vision was not affected at that point, so why would that patient change their routine? The answer is, they wouldn’t. Today it is a different story. When that same type of patient can actually see their hemorrhages, there is a sense of urgency even though they are asymptomatic.
Communication is key to the health of our patients. Being concise, using repetition, analogies, and visual aides in our office can elevate our level of patient outcomes.We are all here for our patients, and to make their lives better. Communication is a very important tool in our toolbox that we can use to support our patients.