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Introduction
Physicians have traditionally focused on providing the best care for patients by tackling medical diagnoses and treatments; however, there are often gaps in patient understanding and awareness of inpatient medical care due to ineffective communication from the healthcare team. 1 Thus, the physician's work has gone from focusing solely on the scientific medical issues towards more patient-centred strategies, with a large focus on improving communication between patients and their providers. Promoting patient-centred care at academic medical centres is important for residency training, and it increases patient knowledge, improves transitions of care, and reduces barriers to medication adherence, resulting in higher satisfaction ratings both from care providers and from patients. 2 Improving patient satisfaction (overall and with discharge planning) has also been independently associated with lower readmission rates in medical units. 3
Physicians communicate frequently among themselves and with ancillary staff to optimise a patient's care during admission and after hospital discharge; however, patients are frequently left out of these discussions. As patients' plans and care teams change frequently, they are left unsure of who the physicians are, what the goals are for admission and when they can expect to be discharged. Prior studies have demonstrated discrepancies between patient and physician perspectives of whether patients know their diagnoses and whether they know their physicians' names. 4 Inpatients often believe they are not well enough informed of the plan of care and discharge plans, and use of patient whiteboards has been shown to improve patient perception of communication, as patients respond to concrete visual explanations and reminders. 5
Whiteboards in patient rooms are being used increasingly at hospitals to keep inpatients updated on this important information. Whiteboards have been present on various inpatient units at our institution for many years, but until our pilot, there was no standardisation of whiteboard templates and whiteboard use. From a study by Sehgal et al at University of California, San Francisco, the recommended whiteboard template included the following information: primary physician name, bedside nurse name, medical assistant name, date, daily goals, estimated discharge date, family contact and patient/family questions. Though Sehgal et al 6 showed that patients, nurses and physicians are more satisfied with communication when patient whiteboards are used, no study to date has shown specifically whether there...