Emerging patterns of communication in a pharmacist-patient health information system

Abstract

Communication between healthcare professionals and patients is a major determinant of patients' satisfaction, patients' adherence, health outcomes, and ultimately of healthcare costs [1]. In most cases, however, personal communication between a healthcare professional and a patient is restricted to episodic face-to-face encounters. Once the face-to-face encounter comes to an end, structured communication ends. The absence of structured communication in time intervals between face-to-face encounters is a defining characteristic of current healthcare professional-patient interaction [2,3]. As a consequence, healthcare professionals lack the ability to guide patients outside the institutional space and to adjust supportive measures depending on particular situations and needs that arise during the therapeutic process. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.