Doing diagnosis and making a proper treatment plan is just halfway through the patient’s recovery. The actual task is to get the patients to follow the treatment. The medical healthcare providers can do better by achieving patients’ wellness by considering a few motivation techniques that end up with better health. However, the point of concern is how do physician motivate patients?
Here are a few key techniques to motivate patients to lead them for better healthcare.
1. Educate patients using handouts
You should have a few brochures in your hand that concern to several health conditions. Give that to your patients alongside letting them know if there are any crucial stats or tips relatable to their health. For instance, seeing the rate of mortality from heart disease can motivate your patient to maintain their diet.
2. Invite them to a workshop
You can host a workshop and invite your patients and teach them the way to live with their health conditions. For example, if your job is to cater to a lot of cardiac or diabetic patients in which diet is really important for managing the disease then offer them a workshop on reading and interpreting food labels and know about its dangers and benefits.
3. Stay in touch
You need to make sure that you have set regular follow-ups with your patients. It would be great if you assign a receptionist to phone or email the patient to check on them in between your appointments. Tell them that they can call you for any concerns or queries in between the appointments. This will be added attention boosting their motivation to deal with their health and update you regularly about the things happening in their life.
4. Get rid of obstacles
There are times when your patient has cognitive or physical challenge that impairs their ability to follow the medication or therapy you prescribed. There are possibilities that your patient do not understand the dosing instruction or medicines or totally unable to bear the size of the pill. Keep in mind such points and get rid of these to keep them motivated for their health.
5. Give them homework
You need to ensure that your patients know that their rate of success to cope up with the illness is largely on their own hands. Explain them things they need to do at home and tell them that you will check their progress and homework in the next appointment. The way you can do this is to give your patients a diet or exercise journal to jot down their progress regularly and bring that to you in every visit.
6. Community connection can help
If you know about certain community service that can help your patient then provide some important information about it and make them get connected to it. Sometimes just a bit of additional support is all needed to keep the patient motivated in between the appointments and make them stick to their healthy routines. What you can do is get information about a few support groups for particular health condition and make your patient get in one relevant to his health condition. For example, if your patient is striving to lose weight then a support group for overeaters can be a difference for him.
7. set simple goals
You are the one who exactly know where your patient need to be and what steps need him to reach that point. In this regard, you should break their bigger goals into small and simple ones and assign them one at a time. For instance, if you are a physical therapist and you know that the end goal of your patient to achieve is to begin walking again then break it into small manageable goals that is easy for your patient to meet. It will become less overwhelming for the patient as he can reach smaller goals first and then progress further with motivation to reach his end goal.
Final words
Motivating patient to maintain their health is something really serious that everyone needs to understand. There are times when patients are highly motivated to do things on their own and there are times when they lack motivation and don’t even try with a single step. So do a few things as above mentioned and keep your patients going for better health.