Team- and Patient-Centered Communication for the Patient Medical Home

Building organizational training capacity is critical to the effective rollout and sustainability of medical practice transformation. With or without formal recognition as patient-centered medical homes, practices that most successfully meet the needs of their patients, famiies, communities and practitioners share a commitment to effective, respectful and compassionate communication. Practices face growing challenges to build and maintain effective communication: growing patient panels, reimbursement pressures, time constraints, documentation demands and imperatives toward team-based care.

The literature is clear about the benefits of effective clinician-patient communication and communication within healthcare teams. Traditionally there has been little explicit focus on communication skills development. Fortunately, effective communication skills can be learned, taught and assessed. IHC is dedicated to advancing the quality of healthcare--and healthcare team functioning--through enhanced communication skills.

IHC's train-the-trainer (TTT) faculty courses combine brief didactic presentations with experiential learning opportunities to help participants improve their own communication skills and learn to teach those skills to others. Experiential large- and small-group learning is designed with graduated degrees of difficulty. Learners work with simulated patients/clinicians to role-play situations that are immediately relevant to their practice settings. Learners practice conducting a portion of IHC's brief PCMH workshop, with expert-facilitated feedback. The PCMH TTT faculty course is the first step toward becoming certified as IHC faculty members. Typically, within six weeks of completion of the TTT faculty course, learners present a workshop with the support and feedback of an IHC Master Trainer. Once certified, faculty may present the PCMH workshop within their organization, using IHC copyrighted curricular materials.

TTT faculty courses are sponsored by a wide array of healthcare provider organizations and conducted on-site or off-site throughout North America.