“I am passionate about improving the patient’s healthcare experience through better communication.”
“I am passionate about improving the patient’s healthcare experience through better communication.”
My research goal, broadly defined, is to utilize the powerful relationship between patients and healthcare providers to foster patient-centered care and improve health outcomes. Patient-centered care is about caring for the patient as a whole person, engaging the patient, and ensuring that decisions and treatments are in line with patient preferences.
My current research focuses on improving communication between cancer survivors and their healthcare providers. There are over 14 million cancer survivors in the US and this population has unique communication needs as they transition from active treatment to long term survivorship care. Using a nationally representative survey of oncologists and primary care physicians, I have analyzed patient, provider, and healthcare system factors to determine predictors of adequate follow-up care communication with cancer survivors. Results suggest that training providers in survivorship and improving coordination between providers could facilitate increased patient-provider communication about the survivorship care planning process. I am also collaborating and leading projects related to the patient-centered care experience of cancer survivors using the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). In addition to providing nationally representative estimates of patient-centered care in cancer survivors, this work helps us understand the complex relationships between patient-provider communication about survivorship care, perceptions of patient-centered care, and patient-reported health information needs and health outcomes.
My approach to studying patient-provider communication and patient-centered care is transdisciplinary, combining approaches from both psychology and epidemiology. I employ a range of research methods including: coding of verbal and nonverbal behaviors, experimental paradigms in which participants provide ratings of manipulated provider behavior, analyses of large national datasets, and meta-analyses and systematic reviews of the research literature.