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Effects of a Focused Patient-Centered Care Curriculum on the Experiences of Internal Medicine Residents and their Patients

  • Innovations in Medical Education
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Abstract

BACKGROUND

Traditional residency training may not promote competencies in patient-centered care.

AIM

To improve residents’ competencies in delivering patient-centered care.

SETTING/PARTICIPANTS

Internal medicine residents at a university-based teaching hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

One inpatient team admitted half the usual census and was exposed to a multi-modal patient-centered care curriculum to promote knowledge of patients as individuals, improve patient transitions of care, and reduce barriers to medication adherence.

PROGRAM EVALUATION

Annual resident surveys (N = 40) revealed that the intervention was judged as professionally valuable (90%) and important to their training (90%) and offered experiences not available during other rotations (88%). Compared to standard inpatient rotation evaluations (n = 163), intervention rotation evaluations (n = 51) showed no differences in ratings for traditional medical learning, but higher ratings for improving how housestaff address patient medication adherence, communicate with patients about post-hospital transition of care, and know their patients as people (all p < 0.01). On post-discharge surveys, patients from the intervention team (N = 177, score 90.4, percentile ranking 97%) reported greater satisfaction with physicians than patients on standard teams (N = 924, score 86.1, percentile ranking 47%) p < 0.01).

DISCUSSION

A patient-centered inpatient curriculum was associated with higher satisfaction ratings in patient-centered domains by internal medicine residents and with higher satisfaction ratings of their physicians by patients. Future research will explore the intervention’s impact on clinical outcomes.

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Contributors

Andrew Bilderback contributed to this manuscript.

Funders

The Aliki Initiative is funded through the Johns Hopkins Center for Innovative Medicine, thanks to the generosity of Mrs. Aliki Perroti.

Conflict of Interest

None disclosed.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, General Internal Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Neda Ratanawongsa MD, MPH

  2. Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Molly A. Federowicz MA, Colleen Christmas MD, Laura A. Hanyok MD, Janet D. Record MD, David B. Hellmann MD, Roy C. Ziegelstein MD & Cynthia S. Rand PhD

  3. Department of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Cynthia S. Rand PhD

Authors
  1. Neda Ratanawongsa MD, MPH
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  2. Molly A. Federowicz MA
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  3. Colleen Christmas MD
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  4. Laura A. Hanyok MD
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  5. Janet D. Record MD
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  6. David B. Hellmann MD
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  7. Roy C. Ziegelstein MD
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  8. Cynthia S. Rand PhD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cynthia S. Rand PhD.

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Ratanawongsa, N., Federowicz, M.A., Christmas, C. et al. Effects of a Focused Patient-Centered Care Curriculum on the Experiences of Internal Medicine Residents and their Patients. J GEN INTERN MED 27, 473–477 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-011-1881-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-011-1881-8

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