Exit Interview

1.) My EQ is "How can a physical therapist best ensure a patient is effectively cared for in an outpatient physical therapy setting?" My first answer was a thorough initial evaluation, my second answer, proper patient education, and my third, patient-centered care. It was fairly obvious even before I got to my third answer that patient-centered care would be my best answer.It’s easy to see why patient-centered care would be the biggest asset to outpatient physical therapy. PCC brings some of the most important aspects of very effective care models and condenses them into one package. There’s no bells and whistles, and no filler. Every component of patient-centered care has a purpose, and all parts are designed to aid in providing the most effective care possible. The comprehensive care model is tailored to human nature and accounts for medical interventions, access to information and education, environment of care, family involvement, and patient preferences and education. Much like the human body it is working to repair, patient-centered care functions as a well oiled machine, precise in its movements towards effective care and greater than the sum of its parts.

2.) It dawned on me about halfway through my research that patient-centered care actually includes many of the care philosophies related to my other findings. For example, while studying techniques for patient evaluations, I learned that communication is a critical factor to consider while performing a systems review.  In the 2006 NIHCM Meeting Brief, the foundation proposed to increase their focus on healthcare-consumer education in order to yield more effective care in medical practices. Their goal was to combine better patient education with consumer-engagement techniques to ensure patients had every opportunity to make well-informed decisions regarding their health. By looking at the entire picture instead of isolating specific parts of my research, it becomes very clear just how comprehensive patient-centered care is. It feels as though every article I read in the last eight months was leading me right to PCC as the best answer to my essential question. It is without a doubt the best way to effectively provide care for outpatient physical therapy patients.

3.) There weren't too many problems I faced while arriving at my best answer. Like I said, I felt as though the whole research process was sort of leading me to some sort of conclusion. I had this thought like "there's an exact answer to my EQ out there somewhere," and I knew just as soon as I had read the words "patient-centered-care" that that was the one. It became real clear to me almost instantly, and then after that I spent a lot of time researching that one answer. There was plenty of articles on the subject as well so it wasn't too difficult.

4.) The Picker Institute's Practical Approaches for Building a Patient Centered Culture
and Donald M. Berwick's article "What Patient Centered Should Mean" were my most valuable sources. These helped me confirm that patient-centered care was my best answer and provided a lot of other helpful articles/literature in their works cited that helped me expand my knowledge on the topic of PCC and physical therapy in general. Practical Approaches gave me a lot of information on the necessary conditions for PCC to be effective, which makes up a good portion of my paper. Berwick's article gave doctor's opinions on PCC and explored it's strengths and weaknesses, which was helpful in deciding if it was my best answer or not.