AHRQ Teach-Back Strategies Help Primary Care Providers Engage Patients and Families

To learn more about how clinicians use “teach-back” to improve communication with patients, access the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ’s) Guide to Improving Patient Safety in Primary Care Settings by Engaging Patients.

The new resource features evidence-based interventions for implementing the teach-back technique in primary care practices.  With teach-back, clinicians ask patients or family members to explain in their own words what they need to know or do. It is more than repeating what patients or family members heard—clinicians ask them to teach it back. Effective communication is a clinician’s first step to helping a patient with a health problem. The evidence-based, low-technology teach-back technique can be the gateway to better communication and better understanding and ultimately it can improve patient outcomes.