Put a Face to a Name: Providing Hospital Patients with Photographs of Their Care-Team Members May Improve Patient-Clinician Communication and Increase Overall Patient Satisfaction

Communication is critical within healthcare, however, breakdowns in the patient-clinician relationship have been identified in such core aspects as the ability for inpatients to identify their physicians. With increased adoption and use of new information technologies that support visual content, hospitals can begin to look at the potential of photographic aids to improve communication between patients and care providers. Making photographs of clinicians available to patients may increase patients\´ knowledge of who is responsible for their care thereby creating a climate of familiarity, improving communication, and fostering patient adherence to treatment plans. We report on interim data from "Put a Face to a Name" a randomized controlled trial (ClinicalTrials.gov #NCT01658644) currently active at a large teaching hospital in Canada. This three-arm study tests whether an intervention providing patients with photographs of their clinicians results in better memory recall, improved communication, and increased patient satisfaction. Due to the frequent rotations of team members in teaching hospitals, we propose the development of a cross-platform application that collects clinicians\´ photographs and information from a number of data sources and displays them organized according to patients\´ circle of care. This provides for a dynamic tool that satisfies health information needs of patients and their families.