It’s the countdown time of year! Here’s our Top 10 most downloaded episodes of “10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication” from 2022.
You’re reflective. You get how much communication is connected to equity. You get how the ways we educate are connected to equity. You’re the best audience there is! You’re the rockstars. And here are your 10 favorite episodes of this year.
Hi everybody, I’m Dr. Anne Marie Liebel and this is “10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication” from Health Communication Partners. You know by now our expertise is in teaching people and organization how to get better at communication. Our new course teaches all patient-facing employees to identify and manage those cultural mismatches that can show up in communication. Why? Because every interaction with a patient is important, and everyone who interacts with patients deserves high-quality support. So from Cafeteria to Cardiology, we’ve got you covered, with Foundations of Equitable Interpersonal Communication in Health. Learn more at health communication partners.com
Alright so I’m going through the top 10 episodes so that gives me just under a minute for each one! This gives you a way to catch up if you’ve missed any of these.
#10 Heath communication’s messy, confusing problems
Yeah–this was a hit early in the year when it came out. It was also some of the most uncomfortable I’ve been in recording an episode. In this one, you’re gonna hear several experts’ insights on what’s wrong in health communication. The most pressing problems. Spoiler alert: they’re not new. Some, even many of them I argue are inherited ways of working in the field. So I offer some pointed questions we can all ask of ourselves and our organizations. See how far we’re willing to go, or what we’re willing to do, to address these problems and remove obstacles to equity.
#9 Making sense of what we read about health equity
My inner literacy professor was super glad this one made the cut. Because I tell you one way I try to manage the complexity when I’m reading about health equity. Because not everyone defines it the same way. And some of these differences are significant. You know I’d done an earlier episode on why we need to be careful of what we mean by health equity. This episode builds on that. Making sense of the range and variation of the ways this term is used, defined, and understood. it’s difficult but it’s necessary if we’re going to make meaningful progress together toward health equity. I walk you through how you can wrap your head around what different documents are saying about health equity, so you can choose who you’re more or less on board with and why. Because you want to work with folks who share your same or complementary ideas about health equity.
#8 14 Reflective Practice Prompts on Health Equity
This is a great follow up to #9! If you’re wondering what you mean by health equity, this episode is for you. I offer 14 reflective questions designed to get at the things that we don’t typically get at. Our kind of taken-for-granted beliefs or what can pass by unnoticed. And then, we turn explicitly to action because this isn’t just an academic exercise or some navel gazing, we have work to do toward health equity.
#7 The nature of health communication is social
Frankly I’m amazed this made the list because it is not a click-baity title, eek. I make the argument in this one for why thinking of health communication as a transfer of information is problematic. I’m not just playing favorites. This kind of thinking is limited, and it’s limiting. I argue it’s holding us back. And maybe that’s why it made it onto the list at #7.
#6 Communication must be part of any DEI strategy
I’ve written many times about interprofessional communication and equity. But I’m still kind of shocked how little I hear about communication in DEI conversations. I have helped organizations of all sizes with communication as part of their DEI strategy. So in this episode, I share with you steps your organization can take to take your DEI efforts beyond just awareness of overtly stigmatizing terms, just awareness of pronouns. Those things are important, but what do we do beyond that?
#5 Introducing our new communication course for all patient-facing employees
This was exciting to me because this was the episode where I introduced our new communication course for all patient facing employees. So that you so much for tuning into this. This was our big announcement episode and we actually had 2 big shares in it. One, that we got a brand new course platform that looks amazing, I’m so thrilled with it. It’s easy to navigate on any device including your phone. And the other announcement is that we launched our first video-based course on this platform. It’s for anyone who talks w patients. Because as you know, health equity is everyone’s job now.
#4 Why NYCHealth’s Language Use Guide is so good
I was really glad this made it into the top– not even the top 10, the top 5 most downloaded episodes of this year. Because I’d started a series near the beginning of the year where I was featuring excellent resources that really get the language-and-its-connections-to-equity thing. And one of them is from the NYC Department of Health. They have a language use guide right on their site, which I think is amazing to begin with. As a researcher and educator on equitable uses of language and literacy, I’m telling you: this guide is good if you want to level up your knowledge on some terms, including problematic ones that have crept into medicine and public health.
#3 That time when Dr. Jonas Attilus visited our show
The #3 most downloaded episode of the year is “That time when Dr. Jonas Attilus visited our show.” So on these countdowns, it’s a countdown of episodes that originally aired this year, the most downloaded episodes that originally aired this year. But for this one I’m bending my own rule a little bit. Now this episode did air this year, 2022, but it features an interview from 2021. I’m including it because Jonas Attilus is amazing and his interview from 2021 is total fire and joy. And also because I want you to read the STAT news article he was just in this year about how Black doctors are forced out of training programs at higher rates than white doctors. So you haven’t heard that time when Dr. Jonas Attilus visited our show, check it out. It’s our #3 most downloaded episode this year.
#2 This HHS course on Maternal Health is the resource we need now
Woohoo! Another from that series where I shine a light on excellent resources! In this one, I preview the free online course from U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. The course is called “Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) in Maternal Health Care.” And I take a look at their instructional design. The educator in me loves it. If Women’s Health is on your mind, you’ll want to take this free course from HHS.
Drumroll please! The #1 most downloaded episode at Health Communication Partners from 2022 is:
#1 4 reasons to take the free CMS course on LGBTQ health
Yes! This series was so much fun to do and I’m really glad you enjoyed it. All 3 episodes from this series made it into the top 5 most downloaded of the year. In this one, the most popular of them all, I preview the free course “Improving Health Care Quality for LGBTQ People” from the CMS.gov website. and give you 4 reasons why you should take it if you want to communicate better, regardless of your patient population. And I want to give a shoutout of thanks to Dr. Lindsey who heard this episode when it originally aired, took the course, and wrote about it on linked. Oh, and Dr. Lindsey is a veterinarian.
This is what I mean, you are the rockstars! It’s an honor to be spending time with you. And whoa are things lined up for 2023! We have major things happening–so much growth, so much activity I’m really looking forward to sharing. If you have an idea for a topic for a future episode, write me. I’m on linked more than twitter these days. And you can also find me at Anne Marie at h-cpartners.com. I’m Dr. Anne Marie Liebel. This has been “10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication.” Audio engineering by Joe Liebel. Music by Joe Liebel and Alexis R.