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Medical Center's New Center Will Improve Health Care
Communication
Patients want different things from doctors. When they
visit their primary care doctor, caring and concern
are just as important as information. But when they
see their surgeon, they expect clear recommendations
and encouragement to ask questions.
It's
one example of how communication can affect health and
health care - an issue that's at the heart of the new
Rochester Center to Improve Communications in Health
Care: Building Relationships, Eliminating Disparities,
which opened with a reception on June 26. The Center
is located in a 5,000-square-foot building at 381 South
Ave. in Rochester.
"With
increased understanding of communication between clinicians
and patients, health care will improve and patients will
be more satisfied with the care they receive," says
Ronald M. Epstein, M.D., professor of Family Medicine
and Psychiatry and the new Center's director. Kevin Fiscella,
M.D., associate professor of family medicine, will serve
as associate director.
Ten faculty and 20 research staff members will form
a multidisciplinary research team. They'll work to improve
health and health care by implementing novel interventions,
educating health care providers and consumers, and conducting
research on health care communication,
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| Ronald
M. Epstein, M.D., professor of Family Medicine and
Psychiatry and the new Center's director |
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with
special emphasis on underserved and vulnerable populations.
"Good
communication is essential to health care at all levels
- physicians to physicians, physicians to nurses, and
physicians to other providers, as well as researchers
and clinicians who work together to get communication
issues translated into practice," says Epstein.
The center will collaborate with work under way in the
Netherlands and Spain. Work also is being conducted
in Australia and England, with two similar research
centers in the United States and one in Canada, though
none are as focused on health care outcomes and disparities.
The time is ripe for a center, Epstein explains, given
the critical mass of research on communication and health
care and increased understanding among federal funding
agencies and community groups. While communication gaps
are evident in the general population, they are more
pronounced in people with low literacy, limited English
proficiency, disabilities and low socio-economic status;
in stigmatized groups, including people with HIV infection;
and in minority populations.
Grants already under way include a study assessing how
white doctors speak differently with white and black
adolescents, and the influence of communication in HMOs
on health disparities and costs.
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