The Language of Caring for Physicians: Blended Learning Program

Blended learning joins the best aspects of face-to-face with web-based resources. Group meetings are used when interaction and team-building are critical. Meanwhile, online resources and tools provide program managers and physicians with anytime, anyplace access to multimedia-rich content that is integrated, accessible across sites and systems, and customizable.

Web-Based Skill-Builder Modules

These eight skill-building modules build the communication competencies key to patient and family-centered care and engagement:

1. The Communication Solution
2. Mindful Practice
3. Collaboration and Teamwork
4. Effective Openings and Closings
5. Engaging Patients and Families as Partners
6. Communicating with Empathy
7. Effective Explanations
8. Hard Conversations

Language of Caring’s Blended Learning Approach includes:

• One competency at a time: Providers refresh and sharpen one competency before moving on to the next. This keeps the time commitment doable and also promotes practice and mastery in manageable sections.
• Compelling instructional videos with vivid examples of inpatient, outpatient and medical office settings:  Presented by Carla Rotering, MD; Pulmonologist, Banner Health; Jeremy Blanchard, MD, CMO, Language of Caring®; and Naifa Busaidy, MD, Epidemiologist, MD Anderson Cancer Center and filmed on location at MD Anderson Cancer Center with the MD Anderson physicians and staff serving as the cast.
• Short group sessions for each module: In just 30 minutes per module, your facilitators present the video for that module and lead interactive activities that engage physicians and other providers in learning together and exploring ways they will apply their learning with patients and families.
• Facilitator training: The Language of Caring team, including our Physician Coaches, provide on-site facilitator and peer coach training for your physician champions who will lead the group sessions. With the Leader’s Guide and customizable handouts on-line, these sessions are easy to conduct.
• Client Portal and mobile app: You will have fingertip access to all program videos and materials on the web and mobile devices. All resources are accessible anywhere, anytime, making the program easy to disseminate in healthcare systems and multi-site practices.
• Comprehensive materials: These support each module, simplifying your implementation process and making it easy for you to customize or tweak materials for your organization. Resources include leaders’ guides, workshop plans with handouts, skill reminder cards, hard-wiring activities, posters, evaluation tools, recognition methods, sample communication tools, and much more.
• Hands-on guidebook: The widely acclaimed book by Leebov and Rotering, called The Language of Caring Guide for Physicians: Communication Essentials for Patient-Centered Care provides physicians with in-depth information and rules of thumb for each of the key competencies developed by the program.
• Customer support and client forum: We help our clients connect to share best practices and insights via our Client Portal
• CEU-ready: Language of Caring for Physicians® includes built-in, web-based tools for validating participation and learning for the purposes of securing CME credits for your medical staff through your accredited CME provider.
• Plus, collaborative planning: Language of Caring communication experts collaborate with your physician champions and strategy leaders to create the optimal implementation plan so the process engages physicians and is seamless and efficient.