In the Promoting Dignity and Respect in Patient Care Training, healthcare providers learn how to uphold patients’ rights, communicate with respect, and recognize potential biases that may affect care. The course emphasizes the importance of patient confidentiality, privacy, and person-centered care. Providers gain practical strategies to ensure every patient feels valued and heard. By applying these principles, healthcare professionals can build trust, improve patient experiences, and deliver care that honors the dignity of every individual.
What You Will Learn:
- The rights of patients
- Communication strategies that promote respect
- Potential biases
- The importance of patient confidentiality and privacy
- The principles of person-centered care
Details:
Course length: 45 minutes; CME: 0.75
Languages: American English
Key features: Audio narration, learning activity, and post-assessment.
American Medical Compliance is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education to physicians. Our Continuing Medical Education (CME) program is committed to enhancing the knowledge, skills, and professional performance of healthcare providers to improve patient care outcomes. Through high-quality educational activities, we aim to address the identified educational gaps and to support the continuous professional development of our medical community. American Medical Compliance designates this activity for a maximum of 0.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits. Physicians should only claim this credit for their complete participation in this activity.
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Legal and Ethical Foundations
Patients have the right and responsibility to fully participate in all decisions related to their health care.
Also, patients who are unable to fully participate in treatment decisions have the right to be represented by parents, guardians, family members, or other conservators.
Fundamental Ethical Principles:
Autonomy – An obligation to respect the autonomy of other persons, which is to respect the decisions made by other people concerning their own lives.
Beneficence – An obligation to bring about good in all actions.
Nonmaleficence – An obligation not to harm others.
Justice – An obligation to provide others with whatever they are owed or deserve.
Fidelity – An obligation to loyalty.
In this course, healthcare providers learn to support patients’ rights to take part in care decisions and to respect those who represent them when needed. They explore core ethics in this course as well as corollary principles. Providers also learn how to apply an ethical decision-making model to guide tough choices in care. This helps ensure care remains respectful, patient-centered, and ethically sound.
Effective Communication Skills
Your ability to communicate effectively with your patients will be more important as you help them understand and take action on health information.
Effectively communicating during the encounter may result in:
- Reduced patient anxiety during the encounter.
- Increased adherence to treatment protocols.
- More reports of patient satisfaction about encounters.
- Fewer medical malpractice lawsuits, and
- Better patient health outcomes, such as increased quality of care and safety and reduced medical errors.
In this course, healthcare providers learn how to communicate clearly and effectively with patients to support understanding and action on health information. Strong communication during patient encounters can lower anxiety, improve treatment adherence, and boost satisfaction. It also helps reduce medical errors, enhances care quality and safety, and may even lower the risk of malpractice claims. By developing these skills, providers can deliver better, more patient-centered care.
Principles of Patient-Centered Care
As essential members of the care team, families play a critical role in reducing harm and improving safety for patients.
AHRQ’s “Guide to Patient and Family Engagement in Hospital Quality and Safety” reviews evidence that shows that partnering with families and patients results in better patient outcomes. This is seen especially on emotional health, symptom resolution, and pain, as well as blood pressure and blood glucose levels.
The guide emphasizes two care processes in particular when:
- Families can impact safety—nurse bedside shift report and
- Planning for care transitions from hospital to home.
In this course, healthcare providers learn how engaging families as care partners can improve patient safety and outcomes. Providers explore evidence from AHRQ’s Guide to Patient and Family Engagement, which shows that involving families leads to better emotional health, symptom control, and even improved vital signs like blood pressure and glucose levels. The course highlights key moments where family involvement matters most, such as during nurse bedside shift reports and care transitions from hospital to home. Providers also learn about the CARE Act and how to support family caregivers in planning safe, effective transitions.
Identifying Discrimination
Individual racism is a personal belief in the superiority of one’s race over another, often leading to discriminatory behavior driven by implicit and explicit biases.
Structural racism is rooted in societal, historical, and cultural norms that support racial group inequality.
As an institution, medicine has adopted and implemented practices and policies that promote structural racism.
Race-adjusted algorithms are based on the historic racist belief that Black people are physiologically different.
For instance, race-corrected estimations of glomerular filtration rate are based on the unscientifically supported belief that Black people are more muscular and have higher creatinine levels. Consequently, this may result in a higher reported estimated glomerular filtration rate, interpreted as a better renal function for anyone identified as Black.
In this course, healthcare providers learn how individual and structural racism affect patient care. They explore how bias can lead to discrimination and how medical practices have reinforced inequality. The course highlights race-based algorithms, like those used to estimate kidney function, which rely on unsupported beliefs about physiological differences. Providers learn to recognize these issues, reduce bias, and promote more equitable, evidence-based care.
