The Promise and Pitfalls of Adjusting Care to Context

This episode features a conversation between Kedar Mate, MD, President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and Saul Weiner, MD, Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics and Medical Education, Director of the Clinical Leaders and Academic Scholars Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Deputy Director of the Center of Innovation for Complex Chronic Health Care at the Veterans Health Administration. This session is the third of four talks focused on health care sector efforts to Adjust clinical care based on information about patients’ social circumstances. In this conversation, Kedar and Saul explore the intersection of social care adjustment and the practice of contextualizing care and raise questions about both potential benefits and unintended consequences of implementing contextualized care.

Recommended references:

•  https://www.contextualizingcare.org/ 
• Weiner SJ. Contextualizing care: An essential and measurable clinical competency. Patient Educ Couns. 2021. 
• Weiner SJ, Schwartz A, Altman L et al. Evaluation of a Patient-Collected Audio Audit and Feedback Quality Improvement Program on Clinician Attention to Patient Life Context and Health Care Costs in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System. JAMA Netw Open. 2020. 
• Weiner SJ, Schwartz A. Listening for What Matters: Avoiding Contextual Errors in Health Care. Oxford Univ Press. 2016.
• Weiner SJ. On Becoming a Healer: The Journey from Patient Care to Caring about Your Patients. Johns Hopkins Univ Press. 2020.
• Gawande A. “Personal Best”. The New Yorker. 2011.