Skip to main content

A Research Agenda for Communication Between Health Care Professionals and Patients Living With Serious Illness.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Tulsky, JA; Beach, MC; Butow, PN; Hickman, SE; Mack, JW; Morrison, RS; Street, RL; Sudore, RL; White, DB; Pollak, KI
Published in: JAMA Intern Med
September 1, 2017

IMPORTANCE: Poor communication by health care professionals contributes to physical and psychological suffering in patients living with serious illness. Patients may not fully understand their illness, prognosis, and treatment options or may not receive medical care consistent with their goals. Despite considerable research exploring the role of communication in this setting, many questions remain, and a clear agenda for communication research is lacking. OBSERVATIONS: Through a consensus conference and subsequent activities, we reviewed the state of the science, identified key evidence gaps in understanding the impact of communication on patient outcomes, and created an agenda for future research. We considered 7 broad topics: shared decision making, advance care planning, communication training, measuring communication, communication about prognosis, emotion and serious illness communication, and cultural issues. We identified 5 areas in which further research could substantially move the field forward and help enhance patient care: measurement and methodology, including how to determine communication quality; mechanisms of communication, such as identifying the specific clinician behaviors that patients experience as both honest and compassionate, or the role of bias in the clinical encounter; alternative approaches to advance care planning that focus on the quality of serious illness communication and not simply completion of forms; teaching and disseminating communication skills; and approaches, such as economic incentives and other clinician motivators, to change communication behavior. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the urgent need to improve quality of communication between health care professionals and patients living with serious illness through a broad range of research that covers communication skills, tools, patient education, and models of care.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

JAMA Intern Med

DOI

EISSN

2168-6114

Publication Date

September 1, 2017

Volume

177

Issue

9

Start / End Page

1361 / 1366

Location

United States

Related Subject Headings

  • Social Skills
  • Quality Improvement
  • Prognosis
  • Professional-Patient Relations
  • Patient Education as Topic
  • Neoplasms
  • Needs Assessment
  • Humans
  • Decision Making
  • Consensus
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Tulsky, J. A., Beach, M. C., Butow, P. N., Hickman, S. E., Mack, J. W., Morrison, R. S., … Pollak, K. I. (2017). A Research Agenda for Communication Between Health Care Professionals and Patients Living With Serious Illness. JAMA Intern Med, 177(9), 1361–1366. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.2005
Tulsky, James A., Mary Catherine Beach, Phyllis N. Butow, Susan E. Hickman, Jennifer W. Mack, R Sean Morrison, Richard L. Street, Rebecca L. Sudore, Douglas B. White, and Kathryn I. Pollak. “A Research Agenda for Communication Between Health Care Professionals and Patients Living With Serious Illness.JAMA Intern Med 177, no. 9 (September 1, 2017): 1361–66. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.2005.
Tulsky JA, Beach MC, Butow PN, Hickman SE, Mack JW, Morrison RS, et al. A Research Agenda for Communication Between Health Care Professionals and Patients Living With Serious Illness. JAMA Intern Med. 2017 Sep 1;177(9):1361–6.
Tulsky, James A., et al. “A Research Agenda for Communication Between Health Care Professionals and Patients Living With Serious Illness.JAMA Intern Med, vol. 177, no. 9, Sept. 2017, pp. 1361–66. Pubmed, doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.2005.
Tulsky JA, Beach MC, Butow PN, Hickman SE, Mack JW, Morrison RS, Street RL, Sudore RL, White DB, Pollak KI. A Research Agenda for Communication Between Health Care Professionals and Patients Living With Serious Illness. JAMA Intern Med. 2017 Sep 1;177(9):1361–1366.

Published In

JAMA Intern Med

DOI

EISSN

2168-6114

Publication Date

September 1, 2017

Volume

177

Issue

9

Start / End Page

1361 / 1366

Location

United States

Related Subject Headings

  • Social Skills
  • Quality Improvement
  • Prognosis
  • Professional-Patient Relations
  • Patient Education as Topic
  • Neoplasms
  • Needs Assessment
  • Humans
  • Decision Making
  • Consensus