Increase Patient Engagement Using The PIES Model

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Patient Engagement – The PIES Model

How well are you able get to the root of issues with your patients?

In his book “Going Deep: Exploring Spirituality in Life and Leadership”, Ian Percy said that “we spend more time at work than with our families – there better be some meaning in it”.

The PIES Model is a really useful tool be able to connect at a deeper level with clients, friends and even family members.

Communication Levels – Political, Intellectual, Emotional, Spiritual

It’s important to have more than trivial political and intellectual conversations. We also need to have emotional and spiritual conversations to get to the heart of things.

Most practitioners can build rapport reasonably well with their patients through basic “Political” (what about this crazy weather etc) conversation and back it up with robust “Intellectual” (peer reviewed research shows xyz etc) conversation.

But it’s the ability to have the non-technical communication skills that will make a difference to your patients. We call this going “Below The Line”.

The economic context is above the line … how we serve and how we get paid.

For example, the patient treatment plan is an important part of “above the line” communication.

“Below the line” communication will help your patient understand how your treatment will make life better for them.

Emotional communication is all about feelings (we’ve written before about the SAD, MAD, GLAD, SCARED buckets for identifying feelings) and these will tell us a lot about what’s going on with our patients.

And lastly, we can engage on a Spiritual level.

(NOTE: This doesn’t necessarily mean anything to do with religion.)

We need to find out what makes our clients tick. Why they are doing the things they do, for example, “If I can fix that, then you can do this”

Are You Scared Of “Below The Line” Communication?

A lot of us don’t go below the line.

We’re uncertain about it and may think it’s not relevant but it is important to go Below The Line and find out how your patients are doing and this will let them know you care and are genuinely interested in them.