The Practice Guide
3. Collaborating with Patients and Others
Providing the best quality care for the people of Ontario requires physicians to work together effectively— with patients, other doctors and other health professionals— within the organizations, institutions and systems for health care delivery in Ontario.
Collaboration with an individual patient is essential to providing good medical care. The physician must work with the patient in order to understand the patient’ s health care needs, to formulate treatment plans that are optimal for the patient, to ensure that the patient remains informed about his or her care, and to address patient questions and concerns. To maximize the effectiveness of collaboration, physicians must have patients’ trust, which is maintained, in part, through effective communication and treating patients with respect.
Collaboration is not only about getting along and treating others with respect— although this is extremely important— it is also about recognizing and accepting the unique roles and contributions of other health professionals. The best interests of patients are served when physicians utilize the skills of others, whether they are physicians or other health professionals.
Good quality health care is often delivered by a team of professionals and individuals who contribute expertise in a variety of ways. To achieve the goal of providing the best possible health care to patients, physicians should also make a commitment to those others who share this goal. Physicians should work respectfully and collaboratively with other members of the health care team to maximize the quality of patients’ care.
4. Communicating with Patients and Others Good communication is a fundamental component
of a trusting doctor-patient relationship. Communications with patients, their families, colleagues, and other health care professionals should always reflect civility and professionalism.
Physicians should ensure that patients are appropriately informed about their medical care. All communication with patients should recognize an individual patient’ s autonomy and demonstrate a collaborative approach to patient decision-making.
Physicians should demonstrate cultural sensitivity in their communication with patients and families.
Physicians should demonstrate an awareness of their own values and how their values relate to or differ from those of their patients and families.
While communicating with compassion and engendering the trust of patients are vital to the doctorpatient relationship, physicians should also be aware of boundary issues and the potential for transference in the doctor-patient relationship.
Should conflict arise, either between the physician and patient, or the patient’ s family, the physician should work with the patient, the patient’ s family( if the patient consents) and any other supports to resolve the conflict respectfully. However, if the patient wishes to limit the information available to family or even other health care professionals who are also providing care, the physician must respect that decision.
In communications with the community at large, physicians must ensure that representations they make are, to the best of their knowledge, truthful.
Physicians should participate in educating patients and colleagues to ensure that medical knowledge is appropriately conveyed to facilitate health promotion and disease prevention.
Welcome to the College – May 2016 14