Over the past several decades, changes in health care have negatively impacted meaningful communication between the patient and provider and adversely affected their relationship. Facing increasing time pressures, physicians rely more on technology than face-to-face time gathering data to make clinical decisions. As a result, they find it more challenging to understand the illness context and fully address patient needs. Patients experience dissatisfaction and a diminution of their role in the care process. Recent evidence suggests that practical communication skills can improve the patient-provider relationship (PPR) and clinical outcomes, but these data are limited. We suggest that effective communication skills can improve the PPR and health outcomes and offer recommendations for how to achieve this, even under increased time pressure.
