Sometimes Silence Isn’t Golden: Improving Patient Engagement by Encouraging Openness
Like most of our experiences in life, the patients and families we remember best are the ones whose satisfaction with our care falls at the extremes. On one hand, the family that is effusive in their praise is one everyone likes to remember. At the other extreme, we can’t forget the families who are disappointed and seem to be critical of virtually everything we do. Even months after they’ve left the hospital, the experience of dealing with them is indelibly burned in our memory. While the families at the extremes of the satisfaction scale may be most memorable, the majority of the patients we care for likely fall somewhere in the middle. These are the families that come and go rather quietly, neither sharing significant