The most necessary form in a patient’s file – at least from the privacy commis-sioner’s point of view – is a statement that makes clear your policy about shar-ing the patient’s information. Discuss with them the fact that you will be com-municating with other specific practi-tioners. Have them sign on the dotted line to confirm their permission. THE RIGHT PEOPLE If you want to be the leader of a winning team, you need to choose the right peo-ple to work with and consistently make an effort to give them what they need. You will also need to let them know what you need from them in order to do best by your patient. Personality, character and expertise matter – make sure you get a good sense of the nature of the health-care profes-sionals you decide to collaborate with. One trait that seems particularly critical is their ability and willingness to commu-nicate. The people you choose to be on the patient’s team could be sharing space in your clinic, or they could work out of an office 100 miles away – in either case, there are many ways to communicate. A phone call, a face-to face, a text, a fax, a handwritten note, an email – depending on the situation, all of these are useful. (Legally, if you don’t write it down it didn’t happen, so be sure to make brief, written notes in their file regarding the www.canadianchiropractor.ca date/subject of any important conversa-tions.) If you are keeping patient records that are legible, logical and complete – as we are all expected to – you will have enough material to provide others on the team with what they need. One of the very best ways to facilitate teamwork in patient care is to do “rounds.” Different practitioners get together to look at specific cases and discuss their ideas on the causes and the treatments of particular conditions. The process can be highly edifying for prac-titioners and very useful for finding answers to cases that are unusual or complex. The idea of participating regularly in a chiropractic rounds is very appealing to most of us – the chances of it happen-ing are slim. If the different practitioners are lo-cated in the same physical space, one would expect it to be relatively easy to arrange rounds. But you would be wrong. Apparently, it is almost impossi-ble to get a diverse group of profession-als who are paid by the treatment to show up for something on a volunteer basis. If the practitioners are physically spread far and wide, it can be even trickier to get together. Tips on conducting rounds: • Schedule them in regularly – say the first Monday of every month, for one to two hours • One person should be in charge of each session – take turns • Everyone on the team should ex-pect to participate and contribute • Have clear goals and a defined agenda – keep the discussion fo-cused on the case • Provide food and beverages – it helps with attendance for some reason Rounds can help you get to know exactly what others on your team can do for patients. This will help you refer with more confidence and let you tailor the information you provide to assist them in helping your patient. If everyone is on the same page, you can all benefit from learning from a common patient, and working toward common purpose: the welfare and health of your patients. PROTOCOLS Once you’ve found the right people and you’ve set up your clinical record keeping in a way that is consistently complete, legible and useful to everyone, you need to establish the rules of engagement, i.e. certain protocols to ensure patients don’t get lost between the cracks. No doubt we all have our own particular sense of how we should run our practices, but there are some guidelines that seem especially effective. Produce a written report of findings for all new patients so your front desk staff and any other pertinent team mem-bers know exactly what is going on Employ common messaging – practice explaining what you do, use simple lan-guage and make sure that everyone in-volved in the patient’s care is saying the same thing Develop strict habits for regularly producing and disseminating reports/ notes/letters about your patient and their care. Remember to sign/date incoming correspondence as “read.” Arrange ways to make it easy for the front desk to schedule appointments with the other people on your team We’re good at many things, but not everything that a patient might need to get well. We should all get to know and join forces with others who can help. Talk to them, tell them what you’re doing, find out what they’re doing, be prepared to provide good notes and expect to hear back – guide and support a real team effort. If you want to be an integral part of our health-care system, you must establish clear channels of communication between you, your support staff, the patient and every other practitioner who has a stake in their care. Everyone’s busy, but make the time to make connections. Cross-re-ferrals, consultations, collaboration and co-operation are the key to cultivating the effective relationships that will allow the patient to get what they most need – a caring team of professionals who talk to each other and provide customized treat-ment approaches that work. Just as the nervous system integrates all of our bodily functions, we chiroprac-tors have the opportunity to become the builders of ‘loops,’ which will effectively integrate our services into the fabric of our communities. It is up to us to make that happen. December 2017 Canadian Chiropractor 13
Chiropractic + Naturopathic Doctor December 2017: Page 13
