Evidence Based Patient Care

Patient-centeredness places the patient in the center of the physician-patient interaction (Carrard et al., 2017). In order to provide patient-centered care, the members of the healthcare team need to ensure that they are changing their communication styles to adjust to what each patient needs. Each patient is different and how one patient communicates, may not be how another patient communications. Adjusting communication techniques to fit the need of the patient is ensuring patient-centered care. Evidenced-based practice is used to assist in problem-solving to clinical practices that assist in providing the best evidence from patient preferences, studies, values and clinical experts in decision-making when it comes to patient care. As healthcare professionals, it is our job to be well-informed when providing care to our patients and using evidenced-based practice will ensure just that. Utilizing evidence-based practice is going to ensure that the patient care we are providing is effective and further supported by evidence. When evidenced-based practice is not used during patient care, it ultimately puts the safety of the patients at risk and can lead to negative health outcomes.

There are many barriers that affect the implementation of patient-centered evidence-based care. One of those barriers includes financial barriers that some health organizations may experience which can make it more difficult to implement. When a healthcare system experiences financial issues, often times they are unable to hire well-trained nurses. When short staff, the nurses that are working are asked to take a higher patient load which ultimately affects the care that is delivered to the patient because they just simply do not have time to give the patients high quality, evidenced-based care. Another barrier is patients that are not willing to assist in their care which can further lead to negative outcomes. Some patients lack the willingness to participate in their care and that makes it more difficult for the physician or nurse that is providing that care. They do not want further educate themselves about their health and that makes it difficult to implement and educate on patient-centered care. Patient-centered care starts with the physician-patient interaction to determine what is needed to meet the needs of the patient and if the patient is not willing to put in the effort, it will be difficult to implement.

One way to alleviate these barriers is by providing continuous education to our patients whether they are wanting to listen or not. It is critical to educate our patients from the time they walk into our clinic until they leave. All healthcare professionals need to be educated and well-trained especially on different communication styles and how to properly educate our patients. Working in a primary care clinic, all members of the healthcare team work together to educate our patients. We educate in person, over the phone and over the portal system when necessary. If patients do not answer, we continue to try to reach out to ensure that we are trying our best to educate.

References

Carrard, V., Schmid Mast, M., Jaunin-Stalder, N., Junod Perron, N., & Sommer, J. (2017). Patient-centeredness as physician behavioral adaptability to patient preferences. Health Communication, 33(5), 593600. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2017.1286282