By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: A Healthier Conversation
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Business > Finance > A Healthier Conversation
FinanceMedical EthicsMedical InnovationsMedical RecordsMobile Health

A Healthier Conversation

etwilson
etwilson
Share
7 Min Read
Image
SHARE

 

When someone suggests you talk to your doctor, remember to take them literally.

 

When someone suggests you talk to your doctor, remember to take them literally.

More Read

workers comp ICD10 his
Workers’ Compensation and ICD-10
Bioethics Commission Calls for More Communication, Proactivity When Dealing with Incidental Findings
The Healthcare Conundrum: Doing What’s Wrong for Business by Doing What’s Right
8 Healthcare Provider Pain Points
Surgery Videos as an Online Medical Marketing Technique

Recent research suggests a strong correlation between malpractice suits and poor doctor-patient communication. In many respects, this makes intuitive sense: from managing expectations to avoiding complications, making sure patients understand their medical situation and treatment plan is critical to ensuring better outcomes. While malpractice suits can be brought for a variety of reasons, quality communication can mitigate many of them (with the obvious exception of simple human error, always a risk in medicine).

It is clear that improving communication creates a better patient experience and better health outcomes, collectively reducing the likelihood of a lawsuit. Less clear is the role electronically mediated communication will play, for better or worse, in getting patients on board with their doctors.Image

EHR: Friend or Foe?

Electronic Health Records (EHR), while mandatory and nearly universal, are still the subject of much discussion and controversy. Aside from the cost of initial implementation, making the ongoing gestures toward achieving interoperability present steep financial challenges even for facilities determined to stay on the cutting edge. Then of course, there is the learning curve for experienced caregivers having to accommodate a whole new pattern of taking notes, consulting across departments, sharing and retrieving records—all on top of an already taxing commitment to continuing education.

Given all the known and emerging practical challenges surrounding adoption of EHR platforms, the question of how they will impact the consultation (and, by extension, rate of malpractice suits) deserves some consideration.

Will EHRs help or hurt doctor-patient communication? To what extent does the electronic record show that patients should have known better, that doctors performed due diligence, and that increasingly expensive “defensive medicine” can be avoided as unnecessary to avoid lawsuits?

One of the biggest factors influencing the answers to these questions is more demographic than technical. 

The Digital Divide

With longer lifespans intersecting with the entry of Baby Boomers into their senior years, the main demands on America’s medical industry are increasingly coming from older patients. But, just as EHRs are still in their early stages of implementation and functionality, the majority of patients come from the part of the population least capable or comfortable when it comes to digital interfacing.

Resistance to wholesale adoption of technology is not a feature unique to Boomer patients; the demands of Meaningful Use regulations have practicing physicians frustrated as well. The modern health industry, crowded with obligations to policymakers, lawyers, administrators, is asking overburdened professionals to now work through the bugs and shortcomings of digitization. Experienced medical professionals have to change old habits to accommodate new systems and technology, without it even necessarily performing as promised.

Hospitals and doctors who embrace the revolution struggle to get patients to do the same, finding that the possibilities presented by EHRs and internet connectivity don’t automatically generate engagement. The new ways to reach patients outside of the clinic also doesn’t change the 15-minute consultation; in fact, many doctors (and their patients) are irked by the intrusiveness of the computers now necessary for recording their face-to-face time electronically.

Between the tenuous state of modern EHR platforms, institutional resistance to the added burdens of integrating new (and often untested) technology, and the limitations of older patients, it seems unlikely that improving communication will result from the new means of sharing and exchanging health data online.

Born into a Digital Age

Even so, younger doctors and medical students are experiencing markedly less friction in integrating tablets, EHR platforms, and other modern technological trappings into their care delivery process. Quite the contrary: medical students fully embrace, even demand, more digital tools as part of practicing 21st Century medicine.

Likewise, Millennial patients and digital natives—a growing population segment destined to overtake Baby Boomers in coming years—have less difficulty or apprehension in taking instructions and sharing their personal data through electronic interfaces.

While the digital revolution may not extend to healthcare communication in this first wave of digitization, it does seem destined to play a greater role as digital natives achieve dominance in the populations of both patients and caregivers.

But that doesn’t really answer the question of whether quality time in face-to-face consultation can be effectively replaced by digital communication, and whether online record-sharing will yield improved medical outcomes, and help avoid malpractice suits.

Learning the ABC’s—of Medicine

For all the fanfare over digital integration, sharing more information more easily with patients doesn’t instantly transform the sorry state of health literacy in the States. With 9 out of 10 adults struggling to comprehend the health information they receive, increasing access online matters less than establishing understanding. Millennials may expect sophisticated patient portals and handy health apps, but it doesn’t turn them into medical experts. Ultimately, communication can’t succeed without understanding.

This still leaves a lot of pressure on traditional consultations, a matter of asking the right questions and making eye contact (as opposed to staring into screens) to ensure communication is working on both ends. While younger doctors may be more comfortable with balancing technical savvy and the human element, that balancing act looks set to continue until more patients gain a stronger health literacy foundation.

Judging from the enthusiasm of techies and developers, we’ll soon have an app for that, too.

 

Image via Shutterstock

TAGGED:Doctors and PatientsEHRmedical ethicsmobile health
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

dental care
Importance of Good Dental Care for Health and Confidence
Dental health Specialties
October 2, 2025
AI in Healthcare
AI in Healthcare: Technology is Transforming the Global Landscape
Global Healthcare Policy & Law Technology
October 1, 2025
Choosing the Right Swimwear for Health and Safety
News
September 30, 2025
sports concussions
Concussion In Sports: How Common They Are And What You Need To Know
Infographics
September 28, 2025

You Might also Like

Health ReformMedical EducationMedical InnovationsMobile HealthNewsPublic HealthTechnologyWellness

Medical Advances Aid Fight Against Pollution-Caused Skin Conditions

January 21, 2018

Are Electronic Medical Records Really Causing a Crisis?

October 30, 2014

Healthcare IT: Will 2015 Be the Year of Data Breaches?

February 5, 2015

Cell Therapy: The Missing Link for a True Artificial Pancreas?

August 30, 2013
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?