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Patient-centered Care & Communication:
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Advancing Research Methodology for Measuring & Monitoring Patient-centered Communication in Cancer Care
The Outcomes Research Branch (ORB)-sponsored monograph Patient-Centered Communication
in Cancer Care: Promoting Healing and Reducing Suffering identifies six key
functions that characterize effective patient-centered communication processes in cancer
care:
- fostering clinician-patient relationships;
- exchanging information;
- responding to patients' emotions;
- managing uncertainty;
- making decisions; and
- enabling patient self-management (including facilitating navigation, improving coordination, and
supporting patient autonomy).
A critical step in facilitating the delivery of patient-centered communication (PCC) as
part of routine cancer care delivery is creating a measurement and monitoring system that
will allow for the ongoing assessment, tracking, and improvement of these six functions of
patient-centered communication. To build the foundation of such a system and to advance
research methodology in this area, the ORB has collaborated with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) on a
research project conducted within AHRQ's DEcIDE network.
The project, conducted by RTI
International , was launched in 2007. The project focuses on the diagnosis,
treatment, and post-treatment survivorship phases of the cancer care continuum
and has three specific objectives:
- identify specific domains and sub-domains that characterize each of the six functions
of patient-centered communication;
- identify candidate measures and describe data collection methods for longitudinal
assessment of the various domains and sub-domains identified for the six functions of
patient-centered communication; and
- conduct a scientific symposium on research methods for measuring and monitoring
patient-centered communication in cancer care.
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