Development of observational rating scales for evaluating patient-centered communication within a whole health approach to care.

Context: Teaching and evaluating patient-centered communication (PCC) skills that incorporate holistic approaches are increasingly relevant.

Objective: This study describes the development of the Observational Whole Health Measure (OWHM) for evaluating the extent to which primary care providers in the Veterans Health Administration engaged in PCC in the context of a holistic approach to care known as "Whole Health."

Design And Setting: Observational rating scales were created based on content from a national whole health clinical education program in the VA and refined from audio recordings of patient-provider interactions in primary care clinical encounters. Unpaired t-tests and Cohen's d were conducted to measure overall quality of what really matters and whole health goal setting and plan development.

Participants: 65 clinical encounters across 8 providers before and after participating in the training were included for analysis.

Intervention: The intervention used for creating rating scales is a 2.5 day whole health clinical education program designed to teach providers PCC skills to identify what matters most for the patients and develop a patient-centered health plan that incorporates integrative health approaches to care.

Main Outcome Measure: Quality scores (0-4) were used to measure number of instances and extent to which providers explored what matters most to patients, dimensions of whole health, and development of a whole health plan tailored to patient's goals.

Results: We developed the Observational Whole Health Measure (OWHM) that captures changes in provider communication. Significant differences in overall quality of whole health goal setting and plan development were detected between pre- and post-encounters, demonstrating a sensitivity to change. With the rise of integrative health approaches being adopted across clinical settings, the observational rating scales created in this study are likely to have increasing relevance.