Poor Listening is a Health Risk
- 61% of doctors 55 and older experience at least one malpractice law suit during their career.
- Physicians and their staff spend less and less time communicating with patients before procedures to ensure accurate communication and understanding.
- Physicians and their staff are trained least in the communication skill used most frequently — listening.
- Effective listening reduces the likelihood errors and costly patient mistakes.
- Using effective listening skills minimizes costly communication mistakes intra-operatively and post-operatively.
Cheung K. (August 2010). Physician Lawsuits not Uncommon, AMA
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[tabtext]How Physicians Develop As Listeners[/tabtext]
[tabtext]Listen Up! for Healthcare Providers Case Study[/tabtext]
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Physician Benefits
- Reduces litigation costs
- Improves personal relationships
- Satisfies CEU requirements
- Decreases insurance premiums
- Produces a professionally trained staff with better listening skills
- Builds strong patient and client relationships (retention)
- Reduces the likelihood of lawsuits
The average medical practitioner conducts a minimum of 150,000 interviews during a 40-year medical career. Collecting data, responding to patient emotions, and enlisting patients as partners in a mutually agreed upon therapeutic plan requires “the ability to listen well and to elicit information from the patient accurately and efficiently.”
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How Physicians Develop as Listeners
Based on the research results from First-Year Medical Students’ Listener Preferences: A Longitudinal Study by Kittie W. Watson Ph.D., Cathy J. Lazarus M.D. and Todd Thomas Ph.D., there is a clear pattern of change in listening characteristics between matriculation and the end of the first year of medical education. While medical students enter medical school with a significant people-oriented listener preference, by the end of the first year, the findings suggests a lack of a listening preference, listener burnout and even listener avoidance. As physicians consider their “bedside manner,” researchers are asking:
- Does the stress associated with medical education encourage students to reject a more relational, people-oriented approach over time?
- Are physician responses to patients indicative of listener burnout?
- Do physicians try to avoid listening situations?
- Does information and/or emotional overload during the first year of medical school (and beyond) encourage students to use other less personal communication methods?
- Do medical students become more isolated as they avoid interpersonal interactions?
Research findings suggest there are stressors unique to health professionals. Listening avoidance, while not necessarily a negative characteristic, may imply resistance and/or inflexibility to listening. These behaviors, if taken to an extreme in physician-patient relationships, damage empathy, trust and good will.
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Physician and Healthcare Listening Workshops
Listen Up! for Healthcare Providers: Case Study
R&R Homecare recognized as a member of The 2013 HomeCare Elite℠¢ Top providers nationwide.
R&R Homecare gives Innolect the credit for the following results:
- R&R’s HHCAHPS score in communication and listening score increased from 90% to 96% effectiveness.
- R&R made significant changes to improve workplace communication resulting in improved internal communication and employee engagement.
- Developed new employee communication skills to use internally and externally.
- Provided forum for employees to identify and address communication issues getting in the way of client and employee satisfaction.
A few changes included:
- Restructured the physical layout of both offices to make the workflow and communication more efficient.
- Introduced central phone system to align satellite offices and to operate more effectively virtually.
- Introduced centralized knowledge management system to keep all employees informed and engaged.
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