Prescription
Building & maintaining meaningful
 relationships with clients (patients)
A highly effective training program developed on CRM platform
for Doctors (Medical Practitioners)

Who have recently started the practice, this program will help them establish meaningful relationships with patients

Who have already established their practice, this program will help them increase clientele

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) the latest concept in market place. Everybody seems to be very keen to retain customers to survive in the present economic slowdown environment. Is there any need for DOCTORS to practice CRM? Let’s see the present situation in India. We have large number of customers (patients) and small number of doctors. Yet we are less dependent on the doctor for information and decision making due to advancement in IT. Patients’ awareness has gone up and they have come more demanding. This has affected the doctor-patient relationship. Changes in our culture and in the practice of medicine have also added tension to the doctor-patient relationship. Research has shown the way patients perceive their relationship with their doctors significantly influences their sense of satisfaction and level of concern about their health. In the fast-paced managed-care environment, relation-building conversations can get lost in the pressure to perform. The demands of keeping abreast of the latest medical treatment approaches can overshadow the need to practice and improve communication skills. A good effective, empathetic doctor-patient communication leads to improved patient compliance and better clinical outcomes.

Many doctors do not see the role of physician as listener, but instead view their function more as a human car mechanic: Find it and fix it. Thus, patients often feel dissatisfied when their illness is reduced to mechanical process. The doctor’s focus is more on keeping up with the rapid advances in medical science than on trying to understand the patient’s feelings and concerns. These days it not important how doctor treats the patient, it is important how well doctor treats the patient. Patient satisfaction comes primarily from a sense of being heard and understood.                                                                                         Top

There are two key drivers of doctor-patient relationship-1) Patients Perception, and 2) Doctors Empathy. In order to understand the importance of these two drivers, let’s see an example of doctor-patient conversation:
     “You are feeling better today?” asked the doctor as he sat down by the patient’s bed.
      Patient was genuinely surprised “Really? What’s better?”
     “Well,” he sputtered, his face flushing “in my professional opinion, you are better!”
      Patient sighed, searching for more pacifying words “Look, tell me something specific”
     “Your blood pressure is normal and you look better” doctor said after a pause.
Patient smiled, privately wondering how he could look better when his dress was two days dirtier. But patient knew he couldn’t afford to challenge doctor again as he needed doctor’s help.

Can you hear the tension in this encounter? Why are doctors and patients so often at odds? Why are both expressing more frustration and less satisfaction? To answer these questions, we have developed this training program for doctors.

PRESCRIPTION-our innovative training program, based at “Relationship Building Skills” concept, enable DOCTORS to understand & fulfill the gap that exists between patient’s expectations and doctor's services. This innovative training program helps doctors to deliver best value to their  customers i.e. patients. Learning how to manage and communicate information to patients within a high-trust working relationship is the key to success. This program helps doctors to understand patients perceptions & perspectives. e.g. To the doctor, illness is a disease process that can be measured and understood through laboratory tests and clinical observations. To the patient, illness is a disrupted life.

What is special about PRESCRIPTION training program?
We have made the doctor-patient conversation process less stressful for doctors and a satisfying experience for patients. We have discovered from our research that there are 16 types of Relationship Building Styles (RBS). Doctors as well as patients use RBS in their communication. It is important for a doctor  to know his own and patient's RBS. For example, when you buy a car you get an ‘Operation & Service Manual’ along with the car which helps you to use and manage your car better. Similarly, we have prepared an ‘RBS manual’ of all types of doctors & patients. This helps doctors to understand & manage patients in a better way. During the training, RBS of every participant (Doctor) is identified and a report is provided. Participants/doctors learn how to measure & bridge the RBS gaps in a step by step process. Each doctor trained by us gets a personalized Action Plan that is his/her roadmap to success, including specific behaviors they need to improve and measurable performance objectives.

An example of patients' RBS in conversation with doctor
For same illness, different patients would give different statements:
Patient RBS type A would say: “I think I have bronchitis”
Patient RBS type B would say: “My wife gets upset with my coughing”
Patient RBS type C would say: “I have been coughing for two weeks”
Patient RBS type D would say: ‘Weather is changing, lot of dust is in the air, excessive coughing is not good
                                               for the health of people my age”
As a doctor you will understand that these are not just 'statements' of patients but these are patients' profiles, which provide more than enough information to handle them appropriately.                                                                                          Top

 
Our innovative training can help doctors to learn how to: 
 

• Recognize their & patients’ relationship building styles (RBS)
• Build meaningful relationships and rapport using style flexing
• Understand the language of the patients (patient’s description of pain)
• Solicit the patient’s concerns and opinions through relationship building styles
• Understand the motivations and wants of patients properly
• Improve patient compliance, work on mutual trust
• Handle difficult patients (expecting an instant cure to demanding prescriptions)
• Adopt patient-centered approach
• Respect the socio-religious belief of the patient
• Assess patient’s emotional health
• Check posture and body language
• Treat the patient and not the disease alone
• Provide the comfort first
• Touch lives – a moment patients never forget

 Our training can also help doctors to:                                                                                                                     Top

• Eliminate patients fear about the consequences of illness and build courage
• Develop a system to communicate test results to patients
• Respect patients as experts in the experience of illness
• Encourage patients to talk about psychosocial issues such as family and job
• Understand when a cure is impossible, healing/comfort may be possible
• Avoid underestimating the amount of information patients want and overestimating how much they actually give.
• Manage their diary more effectively to free up more time for further learning
• Eliminate their frustrations and stress when it does not go their way
• Eliminate all of the activities that are costing them time and energy
• Understand patients as customer need quality treatment at affordable cost
• Understand the outcome depends on the absolute mutual trust between the patient & doctor
• Avoid firmly patient's criticism of the correctness of his/her past treatments
• Respect the newer philosophical concepts of modern medicines (holistic medicines)
   

PRESCRIPTION - innovative training program has been developed by a team of leading Business School/ Management Institute faculty. Our program facilitator has expertise in the area of consumer behaviour & customer relationship management.

A: You do not hire us to teach you about your profession. We do not claim to know or understand your profession or healthcare system the way you do. You hire us to teach you how to translate your expertise into knowledge and apply it from the executive buyer’s i.e. patients' point of view in the right format at the right time. You will see in our training session, at the executive level, pure expertise without translation, usually works adversely. Business School faculty can teach you how to build & maintain meaningful professional relationship for mutual benefits. 

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