We do a lot of "live" activities in our daily encounters with patients — evaluating lab results, health screens, potential drug interactions.

Afterward, we often speak with the patient to reinforce how he or she currently views expectations and possible side effects of prescribed medicines. Each of these activities provides a heightened level of safety to our patients.

So are we doing a good job these days?

Let's just suppose that we might not be doing all we can in our mannerisms or communications to help support learning for the patient. Have you thought recently about how many times a day you say words like cholesterol, statins, opioids, cognitive, CHF, COPD, INR, or adherence to your clients or patients? Do you think they understand all those terms?

Speaking with dozens of patients each day can get fairly routine. Are we always doing justice to the next patient, for whom this could be a matter of life and death?

How much should we be making room in our lives for a bit of rehearsal, or practice sessions, that might allow us to think through whether we speak clearly and at an appropriate grade level for the health literacy of individual patients? What about if they are hearing impaired or easily distracted?

How are we doing in the counseling department, for example?

I recently asked for counseling at an area pharmacy for a new prescription and was dumbfounded when the pharmacist — uncomfortable that I had asked for counseling — looked at me like a deer in the headlights and said, "take it every day" and walked away.

The prescription was specifically written with instructions to use the medication at a higher than usual dose, and only when absolutely necessary. I knew I was only to use the medication to stop a rapid heart rate, tachycardia. But I wanted to hear what to expect, since the medication would be at a higher than usual dose.

The pharmacist, apparently, had no desire to ask me what the doctor had told me to expect or how the doctor wanted me to use it. When I suggested I was told not to take the drug daily, the pharmacist told me he had counseled me — excuse me?

We are surely missing opportunities when we don't use the tools available to assist us in our work — one of the tools is the client or patient, and another tool is the SIG of the prescription. And, if we are serious about trying to improve outcomes, it wouldn't be an embarrassment to ask the patient to wait a moment and pull a reference on the medication, if it is being used a bit differently than usual.

Doing so might even improve our relationship with a client. And we might learn something new about what the med is useful for. Or we might find that the patient is being given an incorrect medication that could harm him or her. We might even assist the patient by doing an intervention.

So, what might we do to examine this issue in clinical practice? Is the staff doing self-assessments either within the pharmacy/clinic itself, or within staff competency evaluations? Should we be asking accredited pharmacy continuing education sources for more programming on health communication tools/programs?

Could we improve by listening to others when they discuss health disorders, medications and supplements with consumers? Could we try to develop a library of tips for improving communication techniques?

The questions are endless, but the bottom line is, what are we actually willing to do? If practice makes perfect, are we willing to assess our techniques and methods? Read a bit on what others are doing? Maybe commit to doing one hour of continuing education on disease-related concepts every month?

If we begin to feel more comfortable with individualized discussions with patients, can we help other colleagues in our own practice reach out to patients more regularly? Could we actually improve the overall care we provide?

By talking with staff to discuss how they feel about their communications with patients, we have an opportunity to develop focused educational efforts. Sharing on this subject will benefit all of us. Pharmacy schools may be great resources, placing these topics on agendas for alumni events or CE days.

Consider the communications you have with colleagues and patients. Let's be the best we can be.