Feasibility of a Clinician Training Program to Improve Patient-provider Communication in the Presence of Health IT Systems in the Exam Room

Failure in clinician-patient communication, lack of clarity regarding clinical treatment priorities, and more recently, ineffective use of health IT systems in exam rooms are associated with deficits in achieving chronic disease management goals, and increased healthcare utilization and costs. Strategies for communicating with patients in exam rooms in the presence of electronic health records (EHR) have been described in the literature. Whether such strategies are reaching clinicians and demonstrating positive health outcomes is unclear. The investigators propose to develop and test the feasibility on patient outcomes of an interactive training module that teaches clinicians best practices for communicating with patients in the presence of computer systems in the exam room (specifically EHRs). They propose to modify and expand the internationally-recognized evidence-based Physician Asthma Care Education (PACE) program to make it a suitable tool for training primary care clinicians on the effective use of EHRs at the point of care. The PACE program is based on concepts and skills for strengthening communication and patient-clinician relationships through behavior change principles that are highly applicable to patients with asthma and has potential for specific application to EHR use in clinical practice. The investigators will first develop the EHR edition of PACE (EHR-PACE) through literature and expert review of best practices for clinicians interacting with patients in the presence of computer systems in the exam room. They will then establish the feasibility and potential impact of EHR-PACE via a randomized design on 125 patients of 20 physicians who receive the intervention on the following outcomes via survey 3 and 6 months post-intervention: patient satisfaction with the physician's performance, asthma control, and asthma-related quality of life. Outcomes will be assessed on patients, but physicians will receive the intervention.Patients will not know which arm their doctor was randomized to.The pilot trial will compare two groups of primary care physicians who see patients with asthma in clinics equipped with certified EHRs. It is hypothesized that patients of physicians who receive EHR-PACE training will achieve better outcomes compared to physicians who do not receive EHR-PACE.

EHR-PACE developed in this study is expected to have a high degree of relevance for improving the patient-provider communication skills of clinicians who see a wide range of patients in a variety of practice settings that have now integrated EHRs. Given that PACE can achieve dramatic outcomes within only two, 2-hour sessions, EHR-PACE has the potential to become an invaluable training tool to busy clinicians if proven feasible and effective. Ultimately, this work has potential for a high degree of impact.