If you haven’t had time to listen to Dr Mary Wyatt’s recorded webinar, Speak to recover — the art of messaging in injury care, don’t worry. We’ve summarised Dr Wyatt’s presentation into 3 articles so you can read it in bite-sized pieces. 

Messaging can have a huge impact — good or bad — and we simply do not pay enough attention to it. In this first article, Dr Wyatt explains why we should pay more attention to it. 

She discusses what ‘messaging’ means and why ‘good messaging’ — recovery-oriented messaging — is important and gives an example from her own practice of how it can help with challenging situations. 

What do we mean by the ‘art of messaging’?

It’s not just what you say, but how you say it

Messaging is not just the words we use. It's in the delivery that people understand our intent. Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s quite hard. Dr Wyatt draws on her 35 years of experience doing independent medical reviews to describe a messaging challenge. But the situation she describes will probably be similar to what many other workers deal with every day. 

In consultations, it can be difficult to take a history when people provide too much detail. This may be because they haven't felt heard in the past or couldn’t get their message across in a previous IME consultation. Or it may just be their personality. 

The challenge is to take a comprehensive history and make sure the person feels like they've been heard and treated well. You want the person to accept, rather than reject, your input. You want to stop them talking but you’re aware that your nonverbal behaviour can come across as impatient. 

Dr Wyatt eventually realised that she could still work well with a patient and tell them they were talking too much. So she now incorporates this messaging into those consultations:

‘I let them speak for a bit and then I say: Thanks for providing so much information. I can see you're looking to make sure I’ve understood everything. The challenge I've got is there's so much to cover in this consultation, that if we get into this level of detail, we're not going to get it all done today. Is it okay with you if I interrupt when I think we’re going into too much detail?’

Dr Wyatt says most people are fine with that because they usually know when they talk too much. ‘And that then gives you the option when they go back to talking too much again to say, with a smile: hey, I’m just going to interrupt you again…’

So the art of messaging is more than simply the transfer of information. It can be that small interaction with the workers in the course of a workers’ comp claim that has the potential to have a big impact on what people do, believe, think and feel and to develop trust. 

Why is good messaging important?

It has a ripple effect

Good messaging has a ripple effect, and you never know where those ripples might go. For example, maybe the way you’ve explained something helped the claimant accept the decision that’s been made a little more than they otherwise would have. Maybe they experience a greater sense of empathy over the life of their claim. These can be little things, but they can all add up. 

It engages people

Good messaging engages people, whether it's the claimant, others in your team, reaching out to the doctor, physio or the workplace. Good messaging enhances engagement. People will feel supported. When they hear good messages they are more likely to be involved. 

It makes case managers’ jobs easier

It's often a tough gig being a case manager or a rehab provider. We can make life a little bit easier if we have good ways of saying things and case managers don’t have to wait 25 years like Dr Wyatt did to work out how to talk to that group of people who go into too much detail that gets in the way of things. 

It also makes case managers feel more satisfied in their role and it builds trust, which is vital. 

It may prevent mental health claims

We have a big problem with secondary mental ill health in physical claims and poor outcomes in mental health claims. This is largely preventable. It’s a huge issue we're not doing enough with and recovery-oriented messaging could help prevent secondary mental health claims.

It encourages good practices

If we share good messages we’ll get a more standardised approach to communication. And if we could do that across the board we're more likely to have consistency and that makes it better for everyone. 

Professional development

We all want to develop our capabilities and develop in our professions and this is one way of developing capability.

Why is it hard to do?

It’s a skill

Language is complex. And sometimes it's hard to put the right words together, to say it in a way that lands for the person. It’s a skill. Some people have it as a super-skill. But for many of us working out the right message is difficult, especially in difficult situations. It does require emotional intelligence to get where the other person is so that you're reading their mood and speaking to them in a way they're going to get the message.

And crafting effective communication can be a challenge if you're trying to put complex ideas into simple formats.

Life can get in the way

Preparation time is an example of how life can be a barrier. We're all so busy, so it can be hard to get time to prepare and think about things and how to best deliver the message.

Balancing clarity with sensitivity

Sometimes it's hard to balance clarity with sensitivity. Delivering difficult messages, particularly with people you don't know well or you don't have a relationship with can be a tough balance.

We worry about being misunderstood and that will often change the way we communicate. The people in your life you know well trust you and you trust them. You can say anything to them without worrying too much about what they’ll think. But other people may be intimidating or anxious and you worry that what you say might go down badly. So you might couch your message in vague terms and you don't clearly communicate what you want to communicate. 

And then there are high-pressure emotional situations

We all often don’t say things as well as we might have if we’re feeling stressed or emotional and haven’t had time to think through things.

The challenge…

We all know what we want to say. But the challenge is ensuring that what we want to say is understood as we intended. Effective messaging acts as a bridge between our knowledge and what we want to say and the person we're talking to 'getting it'. 

Dr Wyatt says: 'It's like the bridge that gets us between those two islands. And it's not just about transmitting information. It's about transforming that information in a way that will help you make a little change and maybe help claimants develop a bit more trust in healthcare and others involved in their care'.

In Part 2 we’ll look at this issue of messaging in the context of back pain.