Photo Credit: iStock.com/Jacob Wackerhausen

Engaging with patients and the community outside the exam room is crucial to addressing social factors, building trust, and empowering patients and physicians.

Robust data exists regarding the importance of patient connection and engagement in the hospital and clinic setting. In medical school and residency, we are often instructed on the importance of patient communication in enhancing patient satisfaction scores, quality metrics, and professional satisfaction. However, a less examined aspect is the value of patient and community engagement outside traditional healthcare settings.

Engaging with patients and the community outside the exam room is crucial for several reasons:

• Physicians can often literally meet patients where they are and address broader social determinants of health—such as housing, education, and income—which significantly impact patient well-being and illness prevention.
• Engaging with patients in their communities helps build stronger, more trusting relationships. This trust can lead to better communication and adherence to medical advice.
• Community engagement allows physicians to broadly and collectively educate patients on important health topics, empowering them to make informed decisions about their health.
• Some data shows that when a physician engages with their community directly, patients benefit from a more comprehensive approach to their health, addressing not just medical issues but also social and environmental factors.
• Through community engagement, patients can be connected to local resources and services that they might not have been aware of otherwise. Support groups and community programs facilitated by physicians can provide patients emotional and practical support, improving their overall well-being.

Physicians who engage with their community outside of the traditional setting also experience multiple benefits:

• Engaging with the community can lead to greater job satisfaction for physicians, as they see the positive impact of their work beyond the clinic or hospital.
• Community involvement provides opportunities for physicians to develop new skills and gain a deeper understanding of the social and communal factors affecting health.
• Building trust and rapport with patients through community engagement can lead to more meaningful and effective patient-physician relationships.

What Does Patient & Community Engagement Look Like?

Non-traditional community and patient engagement may feel like a vague or amorphous term, which in this work can take many different forms. Physicians may participate in more traditional community engagement venues such as community health fairs or organizing screenings, providing educational workshops on nutrition, exercise, and disease prevention, or helping facilitate small group chronic disease management. However, technology has reduced barriers and allowed for easier engagement with patients. Physicians may host online health education sessions and Q&A forums to reach a broader audience without the need for physical presence. This can include webinars on common health issues, live Q&A sessions, and virtual support groups. These partnerships can help extend the reach of health initiatives and provide valuable resources to the community.

Connect patients with local resources such as food banks, housing assistance, and mental health services. This can be done by maintaining a directory of community resources and making referrals during patient visits. Advocate for policies that promote public health, such as smoking cessation programs, clean air initiatives, and access to healthy foods.

There are multiple barriers to community engagement, lack of time being the most prominent for business physicians. However, starting small, leveraging technology, building partnerships, and developing plans with small, longitudinal, sustained engagement can assist.

Where to Start

The beauty and the challenge of this work is that because it is so open-ended and amorphous, it can be challenging to figure out where or how to start. The easiest and best way is to find a need either within your practice or within the community that interests you and think creatively and collaboratively regarding how to fill or meet that need. Get involved in advocating for policies that promote public health, such as clean air initiatives, access to healthy foods, and smoking cessation programs. Testify at your local city council or school board meetings, or if you want to take it a step further, seek election and serve on your city council or school board. Attend a conference and connect with other healthcare professionals involved in community engagement to share ideas and best practices. Start a social media account focused on educating or sharing your professional insights and perspectives. Volunteer to serve as a physician for your local school. The possibilities are endless, and the sky’s the limit.

Interested in learning more about collaborating with your community? Find more insights and information in my column, When Disaster Strikes: Preparing & Adapting to Meet Community Needs.