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Building Trust: Enhancing Rural Women Veterans’ Healthcare Experiences Through Need-Supportive Patient-Centered Communication
Background
Rural women veterans often confront unique healthcare barriers—geographic isolation, gender-related stigma, and limited provider cultural sensitivity that undermine trust and engagement. In response, we co-designed an interprofessional communication curriculum to promote relational, patient-centered care grounded in psychological need support.
Innovation
Anchored in Self Determination Theory (SDT), this curriculum equips nurses and social workers with need-supportive communication strategies that nurture autonomy, competence, and relatedness, integrating two transformative learning methods for enhancing respectful and inclusive listening:
- Cultural humility reflections for veteran-centered care—personal narratives, storytelling, and power-awareness discussions to build lifelong reflective practices.
- Medical improv simulations—adaptive improvisational role plays for healthcare environments fostering presence, adaptability, empathy, trust-building, and real-time responsiveness.
Delivered via a multiday health professions learning lab, the training combines asynchronous workshops with in-person facilitated interactions. Core modules cover SDT foundations, need supportive dialogue, veteran-centered cultural humility, and shared decision-making practices that uplift rural women veterans’ voices. Using Kirkpatrick’s Four Level Model, we assess impact at multiple tiers:
- Reaction: Participant satisfaction and perceived training relevance.
- Learning: Pre/post assessments track SDT knowledge and communication skills gains.
- Behavior: Observe simulations and self-reported changes in communication practices.
- Results: Qualitative satisfaction metrics and care engagement trends among rural women veterans.
Results
A pilot cohort (N = 20) across two rural sites is pending implementation. pre/post surveys will assess any improved confidence in applying need supportive communication and the most effective component in building empathetic presence. Feedback measures will also indicate the significance of combined uses of medical improv and cultural humility on deepened relational capacity and trust.
Discussion
This program operationalizes SDT within healthcare communications, integrating cultural humility and improvisation learning modalities to enhance care quality for rural women veterans, ultimately strengthening provider-patient connections. Using health professions learning lab environments can foster sustained behavioral impacts. Future iterations will expand to additional rural VA sites, co-designing with the voices of women veterans through focus groups.
Background
Rural women veterans often confront unique healthcare barriers—geographic isolation, gender-related stigma, and limited provider cultural sensitivity that undermine trust and engagement. In response, we co-designed an interprofessional communication curriculum to promote relational, patient-centered care grounded in psychological need support.
Innovation
Anchored in Self Determination Theory (SDT), this curriculum equips nurses and social workers with need-supportive communication strategies that nurture autonomy, competence, and relatedness, integrating two transformative learning methods for enhancing respectful and inclusive listening:
- Cultural humility reflections for veteran-centered care—personal narratives, storytelling, and power-awareness discussions to build lifelong reflective practices.
- Medical improv simulations—adaptive improvisational role plays for healthcare environments fostering presence, adaptability, empathy, trust-building, and real-time responsiveness.
Delivered via a multiday health professions learning lab, the training combines asynchronous workshops with in-person facilitated interactions. Core modules cover SDT foundations, need supportive dialogue, veteran-centered cultural humility, and shared decision-making practices that uplift rural women veterans’ voices. Using Kirkpatrick’s Four Level Model, we assess impact at multiple tiers:
- Reaction: Participant satisfaction and perceived training relevance.
- Learning: Pre/post assessments track SDT knowledge and communication skills gains.
- Behavior: Observe simulations and self-reported changes in communication practices.
- Results: Qualitative satisfaction metrics and care engagement trends among rural women veterans.
Results
A pilot cohort (N = 20) across two rural sites is pending implementation. pre/post surveys will assess any improved confidence in applying need supportive communication and the most effective component in building empathetic presence. Feedback measures will also indicate the significance of combined uses of medical improv and cultural humility on deepened relational capacity and trust.
Discussion
This program operationalizes SDT within healthcare communications, integrating cultural humility and improvisation learning modalities to enhance care quality for rural women veterans, ultimately strengthening provider-patient connections. Using health professions learning lab environments can foster sustained behavioral impacts. Future iterations will expand to additional rural VA sites, co-designing with the voices of women veterans through focus groups.
Background
Rural women veterans often confront unique healthcare barriers—geographic isolation, gender-related stigma, and limited provider cultural sensitivity that undermine trust and engagement. In response, we co-designed an interprofessional communication curriculum to promote relational, patient-centered care grounded in psychological need support.
Innovation
Anchored in Self Determination Theory (SDT), this curriculum equips nurses and social workers with need-supportive communication strategies that nurture autonomy, competence, and relatedness, integrating two transformative learning methods for enhancing respectful and inclusive listening:
- Cultural humility reflections for veteran-centered care—personal narratives, storytelling, and power-awareness discussions to build lifelong reflective practices.
- Medical improv simulations—adaptive improvisational role plays for healthcare environments fostering presence, adaptability, empathy, trust-building, and real-time responsiveness.
Delivered via a multiday health professions learning lab, the training combines asynchronous workshops with in-person facilitated interactions. Core modules cover SDT foundations, need supportive dialogue, veteran-centered cultural humility, and shared decision-making practices that uplift rural women veterans’ voices. Using Kirkpatrick’s Four Level Model, we assess impact at multiple tiers:
- Reaction: Participant satisfaction and perceived training relevance.
- Learning: Pre/post assessments track SDT knowledge and communication skills gains.
- Behavior: Observe simulations and self-reported changes in communication practices.
- Results: Qualitative satisfaction metrics and care engagement trends among rural women veterans.
Results
A pilot cohort (N = 20) across two rural sites is pending implementation. pre/post surveys will assess any improved confidence in applying need supportive communication and the most effective component in building empathetic presence. Feedback measures will also indicate the significance of combined uses of medical improv and cultural humility on deepened relational capacity and trust.
Discussion
This program operationalizes SDT within healthcare communications, integrating cultural humility and improvisation learning modalities to enhance care quality for rural women veterans, ultimately strengthening provider-patient connections. Using health professions learning lab environments can foster sustained behavioral impacts. Future iterations will expand to additional rural VA sites, co-designing with the voices of women veterans through focus groups.