Published in:
01-04-2012 | Innovations in Medical Education
Effects of a Focused Patient-Centered Care Curriculum on the Experiences of Internal Medicine Residents and their Patients
Authors:
Neda Ratanawongsa, MD, MPH, Molly A. Federowicz, MA, Colleen Christmas, MD, Laura A. Hanyok, MD, Janet D. Record, MD, David B. Hellmann, MD, Roy C. Ziegelstein, MD, Cynthia S. Rand, PhD
Published in:
Journal of General Internal Medicine
|
Issue 4/2012
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Abstract
BACKGROUND
Traditional residency training may not promote competencies in patient-centered care.
AIM
To improve residents’ competencies in delivering patient-centered care.
SETTING/PARTICIPANTS
Internal medicine residents at a university-based teaching hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
One inpatient team admitted half the usual census and was exposed to a multi-modal patient-centered care curriculum to promote knowledge of patients as individuals, improve patient transitions of care, and reduce barriers to medication adherence.
PROGRAM EVALUATION
Annual resident surveys (N = 40) revealed that the intervention was judged as professionally valuable (90%) and important to their training (90%) and offered experiences not available during other rotations (88%). Compared to standard inpatient rotation evaluations (n = 163), intervention rotation evaluations (n = 51) showed no differences in ratings for traditional medical learning, but higher ratings for improving how housestaff address patient medication adherence, communicate with patients about post-hospital transition of care, and know their patients as people (all p < 0.01). On post-discharge surveys, patients from the intervention team (N = 177, score 90.4, percentile ranking 97%) reported greater satisfaction with physicians than patients on standard teams (N = 924, score 86.1, percentile ranking 47%) p < 0.01).
DISCUSSION
A patient-centered inpatient curriculum was associated with higher satisfaction ratings in patient-centered domains by internal medicine residents and with higher satisfaction ratings of their physicians by patients. Future research will explore the intervention’s impact on clinical outcomes.