Communication in Chronic Disease Care: A Collaborative Conversation Map

Abstract

Chronic diseases require long term commitment from both
the patient and the treating physician for improving their
clinical outcomes. This journey can be made more easier if
a proper communication bridge can be made between
both of them. This paper describes an alliterative C-based
flow-chart to describe a Collaborative Conversation Map
for chronic disease care. It crafts a map which serves as a
checklist for chronic health care providers, especially those
dealing with obesity and diabetes. This conversation map
is concordant with the WATER (welcome warmly, ask and
assess, tell truthfully, explain with empathy, reassure and
return) conversation approach described earlier.
Keywords: Chronic disease, diabetes, obesity, person
centred care, psychosocial issues, therapeutic patient
education