The Ida Institute’s newest seminar series, “Patient-Centered Care: Fluff, Fact, or Fiction,” will address feedback from previous Ida seminars, workshops, and conversation at professional meetings by many audiologists who perceive patient-centered care as an intangible, time-consuming, "fluffy" add-on to their current practice procedures and routines.

“We’ve had hearing care professionals tell us they need a better understanding of the counseling and communication skills that will enable them to adopt a patient-centered approach in their clinical practice,” explains Ida Institute managing director Lise Lotte Bundesen. “Still, others feel that focusing on the human dynamics of hearing loss may take them into unchartered territory that may be beyond their scope of practice. There is even a fear that patient-centered care may present a challenge to their role as hearing care professionals. We are prepared to consider all of these topics and more over the course of our new seminar series.”

Ida Seminars are 3-day programs designed to engage participants in interactive workshops, group discussion, individual reflection, theater sessions, and lectures by Ida faculty. Seminar participants, with the support of Ida staff and a multi-disciplinary faculty of experts from hearing care and related health care professions, will consider the relationships among language, identity, and patient-centeredness and will look at what patient-centeredness means to both hearing care professionals and their patients. Practical issues will also be explored such as the challenges practitioners experience in the clinical encounter when attempting to manage patients in a holistic manner and address the human dynamics of their hearing loss.

“As always, our seminar series will consider the development of practical skills and tools needed to integrate patient-centeredness into day-to-day clinical practice,” says Bundesen. “Together, working with hearing care professionals from around the world, we aim to create a bridge between knowing about patient-centeredness and making it the core of hearing care practice.”

Those interested in attending this seminar should note the following:

  • The first seminar in the series is slated January 21-23, 2013.
  • Seminar participants must apply for the seminar.
  • If selected, participants must commit to fulfilling a pre-seminar assignment where they will be asked to use Ida tools in their clinical practice for a period of 3 months before the start of the seminar and record their experiences. The resulting collection will add real-world knowledge and reflections into the seminar process.
  • For all accepted participants, the institute provides educational stipends, which include economy airfare, transfer to/from the airport, meals, and accommodations for the duration of the seminar. All seminars take place in Skodsborg, Denmark.

The faculty members for "Patient-Centered Care: Fluff, Fact, or Fiction?" include Sue Ann Erdman, MA, CCC-A, consultant, Audiologic Rehabilitation Counseling and Consulting Services (ARCCS), Jensen Beach, Fla; Lesley Jones, PhD, senior lecturer in social science at the Hull York Medical School, University of York; Dr Sophia E. Kramer, associate professor/psychologist at the department of ENT/ Audiology, EMGO+ Institute for Health and Care Research of the VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam; and Joseph Montano, EdD, associate professor of audiology and director of hearing and speech at Weill Cornell Medical College.

For more information and to apply to participate in the seminar series, visit www.idainstitute.com/apply.

SOURCE: Ida Institute Seminar Series