Preparing Trainees to Deliver Patient-Centered Care in an Ambulatory Cancer Clinic

The purpose of this paper is to describe how an interprofessional cancer care clinic at the Cleveland Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) is training health care professionals in patient-centered care. Teaching strategies included patient huddle discussions pre- and post-clinic, role-play, noon “lunch and learn” conferences, and, most importantly, patient interactions, which were evaluated with the patient perception of patient centeredness (PPPC) instrument. This instrument is designed to capture patient and provider perceptions of the provider’s patient centeredness. Early findings demonstrated that patient responses were overwhelmingly positive and lacked variability. In response to the lack of variability, the educator in the clinic participated in the evaluation and patient, provider, and trainer responses were compared. Discussion of the weekly evaluations provided helpful formative feedback on patient centeredness to the trainees rotating through this specialty care clinic.