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March 13, 2006 CHESTERFIELD, Mo. -- Most people, patients and doctors don't want to think about medical errors.
Yet, when medication
errors occur, an overwhelming majority (88%) of all Americans expect
their primary care physician to discuss these errors with them,
according to a national Harris Interactive® poll conducted on behalf of
the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare, a professional
organization dedicated to best patient care through fostering strong
provider-patient relationships. "We as doctors
have seen a change in expectation level of what patients want to know
about their healthcare," said William Branch, MD, AACH president-elect
and Carter Smith, Sr., Professor of Medicine and Division Director of
General Internal Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine. "But
doctors are reluctant to talk about errors. In the face of tragic
outcomes, they fear that apology, however compassionate, may lead to a
lawsuit. Clear communication is difficult in these situations when
emotions are high. AACH has pioneered teaching methods for this
situation, and other challenging types of interactions." While medication
errors represent a specific scenario, less than half (49%) of Americans
are very satisfied with their communications with their primary care
doctor and nearly one third say they are rarely or never asked for an
updated list of their medicines - including over-the-counter drugs,
vitamins and nutritional supplements. "We are pleased
with the positive satisfaction levels expressed in the poll by some
patients, but the results show a clear need for more work to improve
doctor-patient communications," said David Hatem, MD, AACH president
and associate professor of clinical medicine at University of
Massachusetts Medical School. "Good research data suggest that poor
communication contributes to many health care problems, including lack
of adherence to medications, health disparities, poor medical outcomes,
lower patient satisfaction and lawsuits. While the system has gotten
more complex, we need to be sure that we are clear about the
medications that people are taking as a first step toward preventing
medication errors." According to the
poll, 92% of Americans had communications with their primary physician
in the last 12 months. And, only 5% of Americans reported they did not
have a primary care physician. In terms of
satisfaction with the communications, women (56%), persons 60 years or
older (59%) and adults with household incomes of $60,000+ are more
likely to be very satisfied with their communications with a physician
than men (42%), adults under 60 years (46%) and persons with a
household income under $60,000 (45%). Nearly one-third
(30%) of all Americans are rarely or never asked by their primary care
physician to updated a list of their medications including
over-the-counter medications, vitamins and nutritional supplements. When it comes to
updating medications, women (49%) more than men (35%) and persons aged
60 or older (56%) - more than persons under 60 years (39%) - say they
are always asked for medication updates. Only 7% of those 60 years or
older report being rarely or never asked to provide an update of
medications. For additional information, log on to www.physicianpatient.org.
Methodology: Harris
Interactive® conducted the telephone survey on behalf of the American
Academy on Physician and Patient (AACH) from March 3 to 6, 2006 among
1,001 U.S. adults aged 18 and over. Data were weighted to be
representative of the total U.S. adult population on the basis of age,
sex, race, education, region and number of phone lines in the
household. AACH-Harris Poll Charts (93KB PPT)
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