The current situation has limited the amount of time vascular doctors can spend with their patients. Healthcare professionals worldwide deal with increased demand for care, a higher number of patients, and the advent of new technological solutions that require their attention and time. Research shows that healthcare professionals need to develop and implement practices that allow them to achieve more meaningful interactions with their patients. The research’s purpose is to address the need to improve the doctor-patient relationship.
This article lists 5 practices that vascular doctors can adopt if they want to repair the doctor-patient relationship. These tips were identified with the help of multiple studies of interpersonal connection and through observations of doctor-patient encounters and interviews with healthcare specialists and patients.
Now, let’s check the tips.
Focus doctor time on patient care
As a vascular doctor running your practice, your goal is to maximize your practice’s value. You spend over 37 hours weekly caring for your patients, and, understandably, sometimes you feel exhausted. In a functional practice, there are many opportunities to switch the focus on patient care with a distribution of efforts. However, if you’re a solo physician, you may find it challenging to meet the goal because you cannot delegate tasks.
Prepare with intention
You should familiarize yourself with your patients and create a habit of socializing with them every time they visit you. Alongside the questions regarding their health, you should also try to know more about them. The best way to establish a connection with your patients is to show them that you care about them and their lives.
Listen to what they have to say
It would help if you made the patients feel comfortable visiting your office, so sit down, lean forward, and position yourself to listen to them when they come for a check-up. Even if you may have questions, don’t interrupt them because the description of their symptoms is your most valuable source of information. Write down the questions you want to ask, and address them when they finish the monologue.
Ensure your systems work well
Eliminate time-consuming tasks and get professional help to improve the quality of services. For example, you can hire medical transcriptionist services to transcribe your medical recordings and allow your employees to focus on other more important jobs. Many vascular doctors are process-oriented and don’t focus on the outcome. Using technology to reduce documentation time and avoid spending time writing prescription forms can improve the practice’s effectiveness.
Confirm appointments
This is essential in small practices because it can boost performance. And if you don’t have the time or staff to handle the job, you can use an app or system to automatically notify the patients ahead of their appointments and ask them to confirm their attendance. No-shows are costly for a small practice because they don’t give you a couple of minutes to manage the practice but create idle time and waste resources.
Taking action to improve the doctor-patient relationship has become increasingly important in the present context.