Closing the Loop

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Abstract
EDUCATING THE patient represents one of the 3 main functions of the medical encounter.1 Numerous studies2-5 have demonstrated that patients recall and comprehend as little as 50% of what they are told by their physicians. An important strategy for improving the effectiveness of physician communication is to ask the patient to restate information or instructions to ensure that they were understood and remembered5-7 or to assess patients' perceptions about key information and/or changes in management that were discussed.8-12 This technique, which we term the interactive communication loop (Figure 1), not only checks for lapses in recall and understanding but also can uncover health beliefs, reinforce and tailor health messages, and activate patients by opening a dialogue.13