Existing research suggest that the nature and quality of doctor-patient interactions affect patient outcomes such as recall, compliance, satisfaction, health care use, costs, and medical outcomes. Yet, there has been little systematic research on doctor-patient medical encounters and interactions for improving the quality of interactions and associated health outcomes. This is due in part to a lack of standardized assessment methodologies for classifying the contest and quality of medical interactions for diverse older patient populations. Standardized assessment techniques would be valuable for clinical practice and training as well as for evaluating the effectiveness of different interventions directed at improving interactions and their associated outcomes. Use by researchers, medical educators, and health care administrators is anticipated.
