PatientWisdom Platform Helps Physicians Forge Stronger Connections with Patients at Yale New Haven Health

// By Jane Weber Brubaker //

“Sikhona” is a Zulu greeting. It means “I am here to be seen.”

The response is “Sawubona” — “I see you.”

Few things in life are as personal as our health, yet when we seek care, it can often feel impersonal. How well does a physician really know us? How comfortable are we in openly discussing the real reason for our visit — the one we didn’t share when we made the appointment online or spoke with a scheduler? When we see a doctor, does the doctor see us?

It’s not that physicians don’t care. Most people choose the medical profession because of a sincere desire to help people. But medicine today exerts pressure on the amount of time a physician can spend with a patient. On top of this, with the advent of electronic health records, when physicians are with patients, most of their time is spent interacting with the computer screen, not the patient.

Michael Bennick, MD, medical director for patient experience at Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale New Haven Health

What if there were a way for patients to tell their “stories” and give physicians a more holistic view of their lives? What if physicians could take 20 seconds to read a summary of the stories before walking into the examination room? How might that transform the experience for both provider and patient?

Yale New Haven Health is answering these questions with a new platform, PatientWisdom. Michael Bennick, MD is medical director for patient experience at Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale New Haven Health. “PatientWisdom is one of the tools that we are beginning to rely upon to more accurately enable a clinician to gain insights into the question ‘Who is this person?’” he says.

Greg Makoul is founder and CEO of PatientWisdom. “The missing link in healthcare is learning what matters to people,” he says. “We want to improve every clinical encounter by providing every member of the care team with a one-screen, at-a-glance view of who the patient is as a person, and what’s important to him or her.”

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