Patient-Centered Care

Effectively communicating with your patients is imperative to increasing patient satisfaction and health outcomes. Build welcoming patient environments, collaborative care team models and systems for sharing clinical notes with this collection of AMA STEPS Forward^® practice strategies.

• Playbooks: Collections of related interventions
  • Saving Time Playbook Save time by stopping unnecessary work, sharing the necessary tasks with the broader team and gaining organizational leadership support.
• Podcasts
  • Annie's Place: First-of-Its-Kind Free Childcare for Patients A unique center at Parkland Hospital in Dallas helps remove barriers to childcare, allowing patients to access the health care they need.
  • Small Interventions Matter Alfred Atanda Jr., MD, director of clinician well-being at Nemours Children’s Health in Wilmington, Delaware, discusses using digital technology to improve patient care and minimize unnecessary patient transfers.
  • Improve Patient Care With Collaborative Care Team Models Two leaders from Heartland Health Centers in Chicago describe the advanced team-based care model they’re using and the impact this approach has had on patient care.
  • A Search for Inclusive Health Care: One Physician Parent’s Journey A family medicine physician’s child came out as transgender, inspiring him to create an affirming clinic dedicated to inclusivity and LGBTQ+ health care.
  • Creating Safe and Welcoming Environments for LGBTQ+ Patients Kaiyti Duffy, MD, MPH, chief medical officer at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, discusses how to create a safe environment for LGBTQ+ patients, including respectful assessment and response to past medical trauma.
  • Racial and Health Equity: Five Concrete STEPS Rishi Manchanda, MD, MPH, President and CEO of HealthBegins, offers the five STEPS health care leaders can take to start translating their commitment to racial and health equity into action.
  • Sharing Clinical Notes with Patients Learn to write open visit notes and help patients, caregivers and clinicians make the most of your notes in a new era of transparency.
  • Health Equity: The Importance of Building Trust Kavita Bhavan, MD, chief innovation officer at Parkland Health and Hospital System in Dallas, Texas, talks about the importance of building community trust for improved health equity.
  • The Importance of Screening for Social Determinants of Health Margaret Bavis, DNP, Assistant Professor at Rush University College of Nursing in Chicago, discusses how the CommunityHealth clinic assessed and optimized SDOH to improve patient care.
• Webinars
  • Adopting OpenNotes Catherine DesRoches, DrPH, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, offers guidance on best practices for sharing clinical notes with patients.
  • Fostering Physician Humanism and Connection With Patients Donna Zulman, MD, MS, presents a simple, scalable intervention that fosters physician presence and patient connection.
  • Social Determinants of Health A panel discussion webinar on effective ways to address SDOH in your practice and why it’s important for your community.
  • Protecting Mental Health in Disasters: COVID-19 and Beyond The use of evidence-based early interventions can reduce distress, foster resilience, enhance operational sustainment and help treat psychiatric disorders that may emerge.
  • Implementation Strategies for Virtual Behavioral Health Integration Learn how practices can virtually support patients who have a mental health issue or substance abuse disorder.
  • Establishing Efficient Workflows Learn how to integrate behavioral health care into your practice workflow to create a seamless experience for patients and the care team.
  • Practical Strategies for Managing Suicidal Ideation and Reducing Risk Get up to speed with current data on pediatric and adult suicidal ideation, the importance of screening, and the connection between childhood and adult mental health. One pediatrician describes how they added suicide screening and prevention efforts in their care setting.
  • Vaccinations: A Roadmap for Success Marie T. Brown, MD, MACP, Director of Practice Redesign at AMA, explains why vaccine hesitancy exists, and how that understanding becomes the first step toward increasing acceptance.
  • Integrating Organizational Actions Toward Patient Safety and Clinician Well-Being A framework to build on traditional safety models with consideration for human factors affecting outcomes in patient safety and the well-being of the care team.
  • Health Care Technology and the Human Connection Adrienne Boissy, MD, MA, Chief Experience Officer of the Cleveland Clinic Health System, explains how to maintain empathy and human touch within a digital environment, improving outcomes and access.
• Toolkits: How-to guides for implementation
  • Racial and Health Equity: Concrete STEPS for Health Systems Collect data from your health system to build a shared understanding of racism and anti-racism, and use SMART goals to advance health equity in your community.
  • Racial and Health Equity: Concrete STEPS for Smaller Practices As you engage your team in efforts to promote racial and health equity, it is crucial to help your leaders be more comfortable with the discomfort inherent to discussing racism and anti-racism.
  • Behavioral Health Integration into Primary Care 0.5 Credit CME Select the best integrated behavioral health model to implement in your practice, expanding patient access to services.
  • Project ECHO^® (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) Connect with expert medical specialists to build capacity in primary care and reduce health disparities.
  • Health Coaching 0.5 Credit CME Recruit, train and mentor health coaches who can help patients take charge of their health.
  • Building a Patient Experience Program Develop a patient experience program to improve your practice and increase satisfaction among patients and caregivers.
  • Forming a Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) Learn how patient and family perspectives can help you boost engagement and achieve more patient-centered care in your practice.
  • Medication Adherence Better understand why patients don’t take their medications, how to ask about adherence, and what physicians can do to improve outcomes.
  • Social Determinants of Health 0.5 Credit CME Understand social determinants of health, health disparities and the unique needs of your community to improve outcomes beyond the clinic walls.
  • Empathetic Listening Apply empathetic listening to identify the patient’s underlying feelings, needs and values.
  • Choosing Wisely^® Promote patient-physician conversations to improve patient engagement and choose appropriate care.
  • Sharing Clinical Notes with Patients Learn to write open visit notes and help patients, caregivers and clinicians make the most of your notes in a new era of transparency in medicine.
  • Essentials of Good Pain Care: A Team-Based Approach 0.5 Credit CME Safely manage acute and chronic pain, using non-pharmacologic and non-opioid therapies first.
  • Adult Vaccinations Build a successful team-based adult immunization program and find downloadable tools and training materials to guide you through the process.
  • Embedding Pharmacists into the Practice Learn to collaborate with pharmacists in a team-based care model that can improve patient outcomes.
  • Patient Portal Optimization Empower patients to communicate quickly with the care team and participate as partners in their health care.
  • Optimizing Space Reorganize the layout of your clinic's examination rooms and team areas to improve efficiency, engagement and satisfaction for patients and providers.
  • Patient Care Registries Appropriate training and carefully designed practice workflows can help proactively manage chronic conditions.
  • Panel Management Use a panel management strategy and patient care registries to identify gaps and provide comprehensive preventive care.
  • Annual Prescription Renewal 0.5 Credit CME Learn how working with pharmacies to synchronize prescription renewals can save time and improve medication adherence.
  • Medication Management Adopt annual synchronized prescription renewals and learn to save time by simplifying your prescribing and refill processes.
  • Patient Pre-Registration Use a script to help your patients with preregistration, saving you and your patients time while compiling a complete medical history.
  • Pre-Visit Laboratory Testing 0.5 Credit CME Ordering pre-visit lab tests allows the patient and physician to have a face-to-face conversation about the results, improving care and efficiency.
  • Panel Sizes for Primary Care Physicians Understand the key metrics that can help define the optimal panel size for your practice.
  • Value-Based Care Prepare your practice for an alternative model that focuses on improving patient health, reducing the effects and incidence of chronic disease, and living healthier lives.
• Success Stories: Real-world examples
  • Screening for Food Insecurity with Two Questions Results in Sixteen-Fold Increase in Food Resource Referrals Learn how Hayward Wellness Center in the San Francisco area consulted with experts to better identify patients at risk of food insecurity and improve referrals for food resources.
  • Community Tours Highlight Opportunities for Health Care and Faith-Based Organizations to Work Together Read how Bon Secours St. Francis Health System in South Carolina leveraged mission tours to shine a light on the needs of the community, and how their health system plays an integral role.
  • Read more Success Stories