What HCP can do for you, Part 2

10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication

Our live event is just around the corner! It’s just one of many ways HCP can take things off your plate.

Because you’re listening to this show, chances are you’re also working on some of the most deep-seated and persistent problems facing society today. I talk with my colleague, India Menon, about what it means to get into the weeds with you and support the work you do in the world.

Hi everybody, I’m Dr. Anne Marie Liebel, and this is 10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication from Health Communication Partners. I’m happy to announce my first live event open to the public here at Health Communication Partners. It’s on reflective practice. and in these tough times, reflective practice can give us the tools we need, and the reason we need, to pause and consider deeply some of the motivations behind our actions. This is what reflective practice contributes to us and our work.

You’ll hear real-world examples from healthcare, academia, academia, business, and public health, and gain insights into what reflective practice can do for you and your work. Please join me and some of your colleagues! We’re going to get to interact with each other and tickets are going fast. It’s coming up at the end of this month, so visit healthcommunicationpartners.com and register today.

Now I’m going to turn to part two of my conversation with my colleague India Menon about what it means to get into the weeds and face some of these really persistent issues along with you and the clients that I am privileged to be able to work with.

India: All right. So courses, that’s a really big part of what you do is you develop and you deliver these courses to your clients. But you do consulting and coaching, right?

Anne Marie: Yeah. Yeah. So the courses were kind of because the whole world did the switch to have, you know, online life with COVID.

India: Sure

AM: My heart’s always going to be in working with people and being on the ground and being close to the fire and just, you know, getting into the day -to -day problems and attaching them to, what is our vision? What’s our strategic mission? What are the kinds of requirements that we’ve got to meet? And that’s where, I mean even with my courses, that live session has a very coach-y, consult-y feeling to it. So what has happened is that people who’ve taken my courses have then kind of come back to me and said, You know what, can you help us with some of these issues? They’re bigger issues that you’re getting us to think in different ways about. Can you do some more work with us on them? And that’s super. I appreciate that and I see it as a real vote of trust that people have taken the courses. They're like, “Yeah, what you’re saying makes sense. You’re talking about what we are experiencing. Come on in and spend some more time with us and walk along and give us some more of these tools and help us understand how we can meet the goals that we’ve got, get to the objectives that we’ve got. And it’s gonna be a little bit different in every place, but that’s what I’ve been doing for years and years and years and I love it.

India: I am sure, it sounds like you’ve probably learned a lot.

– Oof. (both laughing) –

India: ‘Cause I think sometimes when people hear the word ‘consultant’ they kind of hide under their desks.

AM: Right.

India: But you know, I mean, my understanding of what you do is, that it’s really your focus on what resources do people have at their disposal and how can we leverage those?

AM: Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for that too. Thanks for that. Kind of like, I’m not coming in and being like,’ all right, you’re doing it all wrong. Do it like this.’

Yeah.

We start with, all right, well, what are you doing? And it’s also not, it’s also not an additive. It’s not one more thing stacked up on top of what you’re already doing. Like, and I think that’s one of the things that people like, is that I’m getting in and helping you do kind of process improvement. Like, what are you already doing? What are the actions you’re already taking?

Yeah

Let’s optimize them. Let’s get, let’s, let’s be preventative. Let’s make sure we’re getting errors out of the way, if you want to use that kind of language, and help make the systems and processes that you already have in place work as well as you can. And then we’re gonna talk about is something we need to add.

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah Yeah, that just takes like 20 minutes, right? Done! Thanks for having me ! You know, I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about– also because I think the people will want to know– is how do you know it works? Like if I’m a client, you know, is there data that you collect and then share with folks? Like does it work? How do you know?

Yeah, and that’s a question that when you’re in an Educational scenario, like going way back, You know, we had a whole lot of different metrics that we needed to hit to show that we were doing what it said, we said we were doing. So in healthcare and public health, there are so many metrics that are collected. So there’s always going to be engagement metrics, there’s going to be people who are registering, there’s going to be people who are responding, there’s going to be numbers like that, butts in chairs, you know. How many phone calls does it take? How many visits does this take? How long does it take? So those kinds of quality metrics depends on whatever the quality framework is that the organization is using. But people want to move those kinds of metrics. Another set of outcomes that I’m often asked to help out with have to do with, let’s say, some national standards, like the Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) standards. CMS has its health equity framework. So one of those standards or one of those priority areas that I’m working with. Right now, we’ve got more regulatory is coming along with health equity requirements. Again, it hits the quality improvement world. So those are the numbers that we’re looking at, I think most often in healthcare and also in public health. But then when you look at the corporate world, everyone’s got their employee engagement concerns, employee satisfaction, retention, attrition. Like, you know, employees are hot commodities right now,

Yes

And companies want to keep them and want to be good to them

Sure

And want to help grow their people. So it’s, it’s a similar world in that sense.

Yeah. And then you also, if you, if somebody takes one of your courses, don’t you do an assessment on the front end and back end?

So yeah. And that, yeah, really great question. And that’s something that’s evolving. Because I have these kinds of, it’s a hands on process with me, and everyone is different. So trying to learn more about that particular client and that particular group, and what their goals are and what kind of progress they’re trying to make towards a specific strategic goal.

Sure

So that you have to do on a one by one basis with an organization.

Yeah. Well, and I was also thinking about like on some of your, the courses, like the patient ed course, you know, I was just crunching some numbers last week for you. And it was a pre -test post -test. And it’s really just so fun to kind of read their comments and see what people are getting out of it. And then also the numbers tell us too, a lot, right? That they are making– I mean, a lot of the folks that come to your courses are already pretty savvy, but they walk out with even more. And the numbers are bearing that out too. Which I thought was, it’s just fun to be part of.

I’m so grateful for you and your research savvy. And to be honest, you’re numbers!

So you’ve got the webinar, you’ve got courses, you do consulting and coaching. Can I ask you to tell me about one of your favorite clients and why are they one of your favorite clients? Well, you don’t have to name names.

Right. I was gonna say I don’t really have permission to talk about people. I mean, I am really, really grateful for the clients that I have that allow me to put some of their statements with their name on it on the website. So you can definitely read like the who’s who on the website. And I have a few more of those I need to put on. I gotta refresh that. But one of the things I can say is that most of my clients are repeat clients, which is also something I am

Ooh

Yeah, I’m proud of. I never even thought about that as something to be proud of. I’m just really happy because I get to keep working with them, because I understand more about what they’re doing. And I understand their context. I understand their problems. I understand their strengths. So to be able to keep seeing people–like you said, they’re already strong–get stronger, do new things,

Hmmhmm

Break into new ground that they hadn’t been in before. It’s immensely satisfying as an educator. And it’s also really exciting as a researcher. Because for some of my clients, it goes to that level where people are actually having to do research. So that’s also immensely satisfying too. But just being people, because this is long -term work. like none of this is like quick, you know, rappel and out, we’re done. Like this is long -term change that we’re trying to make. It’s deep work. And it takes time. So I’m really proud that a lot of my clients are, most of my clients are repeat clients.

Yeah

It’s a great relationship too.

I like that. It suggests that they’re probably like focused on like sustainable change, right? Like they don’t want to just check a box usually.

That’s not who's very attracted to working with us, no.

Yeah. Well, Anne Marie, this has been lovely. Thank you for giving us like the latest, uh, like, shakedown on what’s happening at Health Communication Partners. If people want to learn more, they can of course, what like keep listening to the podcast, but where else can they learn more?

Sure. So the Health Communication Partners website, and we are also on LinkedIn, I’m probably more active on LinkedIn than I am anywhere the last few months, but we are also still on X formerly Twitter. And you can always drop me a note too. I love hearing from people, Anne Marie, A -N -N -E -M -A -R -I -E at H-CPartners.com or go to Health Communication Partners and click on contact. It comes right to me. Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter too because if you get our newsletter, you can reply to the newsletter and it comes right to me.

Awesome, Anne Marie, this has been really fun. Thanks for taking me behind the curtain and shining the light on all the hard work you’re doing behind the scenes, it’s awesome.

And that you are helping me with too and all the hard work you’re doing too.

Oh, it’s been a real fun journey. Thank you.

Oh my gosh, thanks so much, India.

All right, talk to you later.

Sounds good, bye!

Bye!

Bye.

Thanks again to India for being on mic with me. This has been 10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication from Health Communication Partners. Audio Engineering and Music by Joe Liebel. Additional Music by Alexis Rounds. Rounds.

Thanks for listening to 10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication from Health Communication Partners, LLC. Find us at healthcommunicationpartners.com.

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