This appeared last week:
Doctor–patient communication and relationship in telehealth
Authored by
Sabe Sabeson
Danny Tucker
Danny Tucker
TELEHEALTH involves the provision of health
care using technology such as videoconferencing and telephones. It has
traditionally been used by clinicians to improve access to care for regional and rural communities and
vulnerable populations. As
part of measures to control the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),
telehealth has rapidly gained acceptance as a routine model for providing care
at home, even for metropolitan patients. Professionals adopting this mode of
communication include GPs, specialists and other health care providers. This
model has proven useful for regular consultations and supervision of oral and
intravenous therapies. Acknowledging some limitations,
safe provision of care using telehealth is possible, but some elements still
require face to face interaction.
The approach to telehealth is well
established and many organisations have developed guidelines. Typically, a
distant clinician provides a service to patients, and other health
professionals, such as pharmacists, nurses and pathologists, provide support
for documentation, prescribing, ordering of investigations and performing
physical examinations. In most outreach settings, the patient is known to a
small number of visiting clinicians.
However, the role of telehealth has been
extended in the recent months due to the COVID-19 pandemic and doctors may have
to alter their approaches to doctor–patient communication in telehealth by
factoring in additional considerations as listed below:
- Clinicians may have to rely on family members as support persons for the patient. Attending family members who don’t reside in the same house may need to consider physical distancing policies. Other members may be encouraged to join a consultation via videoconferencing.
- Medication prescriptions and investigations may have to be organised by the providing clinicians themselves.
- It is important to consider converting to telephone consultation if internet congestion interrupts video calls.
- End-of-life discussions and breaking bad news – conversations that are usually undertaken face to face – may need to occur via telehealth. Current frameworks for end-of-life and breaking bad news discussion apply to telehealth, with attention to technical considerations.
- Consultations may take place by specialists, GPs and junior medical officers who are not familiar with the patient. Confirmation of patient identity must occur.
- Working from home and dialing into homes may require mechanisms for maintaining the privacy of both doctor and patients.
Doctor–patient communication in telehealth
Doctor–patient
communication is an essential aspect of any therapeutic relationship between a
patient and their doctor. It is influenced by many factors,
including personality and communication style of both patient and doctor, the
physical environment and patient education level. Only 7% of emotional
communication occurs through the content of speech, whereas 22% depends on the
tone of voice and 55% by posture, gaze and eye contact. In addition to
technological considerations, the dynamics of doctor–patient communication and
relationship may be different in a telehealth consultation. Although the parties
are not in the same room, other clinicians and multiple family members may be
present as support persons or facilitators. This approach allows families and
other clinicians to adopt the role of addressing perceived gaps in
communication.
Many
studies have shown that patients can experience effective and satisfactory
doctor–patient communication through technology-based consultations and that
patients can establish a close relationship with clinicians regardless of
ethnic and cultural backgrounds (here, here, here, here, here and here).
By
synthesising the literature and guidelines and using personal experience of
setting up and running telehealth models across a large geographic area for
many years, we have identified the following advice to enable clinicians to
offer a quality service via telehealth:
Mindset
Patients
and their support people are struggling with both their current diagnosis and
fear about the pandemic. Therefore, traditional frameworks for doctor–patient
communication and relationship-building used in face to face interaction are
still necessary for telehealth consultations, including aspects of compassion
and empathy.
Technological aspects
Ensuring
that audio and video qualities are acceptable and that you can hear and see
each other clearly and that head and shoulders are in the middle of the screen
and the camera is at eye level.
Maintaining privacy
Privacy
considerations include ensuring that the health professional’s family members
do not see patient-sensitive material. A secure computer in a closed
environment is required.
Surroundings
A
quiet location avoiding interruptions or noise at both patient’s and provider’s
end is essential for an efficient telehealth consultation, especially for
health professionals working from home. Some videoconferencing platforms allow
blur or replacement of the background.
Confirming identity
Until
now, most of the telehealth consultations were provided by clinicians well
known to the patient. In the current situation, many doctors, including less
experienced medical officers, who may not be familiar with the patient, need to
provide consultations. The confirmation of the patient’s identity needs to take
place before commencing.
Establishing rapport, relationship and trust
- Introduce yourself to the patient and their family members, and establish eye contact by keeping the eyes at the level of the camera.
- Spend some time initially discussing non-medical matters such as family, how they are coping with the current COVID-19 situation, fears and concerns.
Transfer of information
- Speak slowly and use non-technical language.
- Use visual aids to explain the situation. This may include online whiteboards, writing on paper and sharing of screens to show medical imaging and pathology where appropriate.
- Summarise the consultation and check that they have understood the information. Where possible, consider sending a copy of the consultation summary to the patient as well as the GP.
- Before completing the consultation, provide opportunities to the patient and family members for addressing current and future concerns by encouraging questions and offering contact details.
- Highlight the importance of vaccinations, hygiene and physical distancing measures for the patient and family members.
Breaking bad news and communicating prognosis and end-of-life
issues using telehealth
Traditionally,
clinicians ensure end-of-life discussions and breaking bad news conversations
are performed through face to face interactions. With physical distancing
measures and the need to reduce unnecessary travel, this aspect of health care
may now need to occur through telehealth. There are many frameworks available for
breaking bad news and end-of-life discussions which are applicable in a
telehealth setting.
There
is more here with some helpful acronyms to assist in quality delivery of care.
There
are also 2 excellent webinar recording from the Digital Health CRC relating to
telehealth deployment in the COVID-19 era.
They
can be accessed from this link:
To
me the key point here is that if a practitioner is planning to offer these services
will find their path greatly eased and really re-assured if these resources are
carefully reviewed!
David.
No comments:
Post a Comment