All you need is love .. and time .. and a bit of medicine
All you need is love.” Lennon/McCartney 1967
What do people want aside from food, money and shelter? Good health. Human connection. And being loved is part of that.
In the context of health care, patients rank relationships with their doctors as the top characteristic of quality of care.
Three factors most cited as critical to their healthcare experience are having a doctor:
- who listens,
- who is caring and compassionate, and
- who explains things well.
When people are asked about their healthcare experiences, they speak about the quality of the connection and interaction between them and their clinicians.
Yet we do not incentivise the time required to build a strong human connection – the average primary care (GP) visit lasts under 10 minutes. This is far too short.
Kindness can be forgotten in the blur of work, more patients than you can handle, and irritating admin tasks using clunky computer systems (that don’t talk to each other) – frustrating for us, and more importantly, the patients.
Older adults rank remaining independent and relief from pain and other symptoms, ahead of living longer. Pain is rarely made up.
We also do not incentivise continuity in clinical relationships that are required to achieve that. How can the patient contact you? Is it easy for them?
If the purpose of the healthcare system is to improve the overall well-being of society, part of the NHS’s budget (£190+ billion per year) could be redirected to facilitate human connection.
Interaction time with doctors needs to lengthen to improve that doctor/patient connection. We all also need to be alot kinder.
[“If you area health professional, how did you show kindness today?” MyHSN Ed]
Top Tip
Accurx can be used to put a message in a patient’s phone. You just need their NHS number. Why not sign up for Accurx today?
