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Everyone is pressed for time in healthcare and effective communication has always been a top priority. Effective communication does not necessarily need to take more time to implement though.
As we learn on today’s podcast episode with Dr. George Mayzell, often it’s a matter of rephrasing things.
“We know folks are time pressured. We’re not trying to necessarily extend these conversations, we are trying to make it more efficient,” he told us.
Today’s podcast episode comes with a companion infographic with many suggestions for better using language when providing care and comfort to patients. We hope you will find it useful to read before or after listening to today’s episode with Dr. Mayzell. You can access it here: https://bit.ly/3v3iq8C
Did you know? Effective physician-patient communication has been shown to positively influence health outcomes by increasing patient satisfaction, leading to greater patient understanding of health problems and treatments available, contributing to better adherence to treatment plans, and providing support and reassurance to patients.
For an effective communication example, Dr. Mayzell warns against interrupting the patient or speaking when they are trying to say something. He instead advises to:
Active listening can be a challenge as the average doctor interrupts the patient in 11 seconds, Dr. Mayzell told us.
“If a patient feels like you’ve heard them, you are going to get much better information. Ultimately it’s going to be a much better experience for you and the patient,” he said.
Watch This Podcast
You can watch today’s podcast interview with Dr. Mayzell here:
The Effective Physician/Patient Communication Infographic
Dr. Mayzell drew upon his decades experience as physician, chief medical officer and coach to create this resource. It includes common phrases to avoid while providing suggestions to better facilitate patient interactions. See the full infographic here.
We encourage you to download this infographic from our website and share it with your colleagues. Need help with physician patient communication? Please contact Brooke Billingsley at HXF for a diagnostic coaching call: Brooke@healthcareexperience.org.
About Dr. Mayzell
Dr. Mayzell is a board-certified internist, geriatrician, and a physician coach and speaker with the Healthcare Experience Foundation (HXF). He is a leading voice in the ongoing battle to prevent burnout in medicine.
Dr. Mayzell has co-authored several books including, Leveraging Lean in Healthcare and Physician Alignment and The Resilient Healthcare Organization: How to Reduce Physician and Healthcare Worker Burnout.
Dr. Mayzell has previously joined our podcast for two other episodes. You can find them here:
More Podcasts
Be on the lookout for a new podcast episode coming to you soon. The latest five podcasts of our show are also available here:
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Healthcare Experience Matters covers topics like combatting physician burnout, mindfulness, empathy, compassion fatigue and much more. We publish a new podcast every Thursday morning so please stay tuned for more shows!