Page 170 - HA Convention 2015

Parallel Sessions

PS4.3 Patient Relations and Complaint Management 14:30 Theatre 2

Tuesday, 19 May Better Patient Communication through Training Doctors and Healthcare Staff
Dai DLK1, Wong P 1, Cheng S 2, Wang J 3
1Committee on Complaint Management and Patient Engagement, 2Training and Development Team,
3Patient Relations Office, New Territories East Cluster, Hospital Authority, Hong Kong

Better patient communication (BPC) is a patient-centred communication course developed by the Training and Development
Team, in a gradated curriculum from frontline patient communication, complaint management, mediation skills to incident
management.

The course material receives significant input from clinicians that the teaching materials and video role plays are relevant to
real life situations in clinical setting. After running for one year, while positive feedback has been received, participation from
doctors has been low at 12.5%. At least two clusters have taken an on-site approach towards doctors training and tailored
the BPC material to suit the schedules of doctors attending the cluster. At New Territories East Cluster, the course material
is modified to two hours with more senior clinicians to be the speakers and facilitators. 59 doctors in their first five years of
residency have attended three courses, with a mean turn up rate of 85%. Doctors seldom have the chance to undergo soft
skill training, though all will understand effective communication is as important as professional skill training.

We suggest that more experienced clinicians should take a leading role in mentoring juniors by using real case scenarios to
illustrate the gaps identified in the Patient Experience and Satisfaction Survey.

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