Purpose
Communication refers to the process of transfer massage of each other through the verbal, sign and written language. Effective communication is the most important part of any workplace especially in health care settings, as it helps the staffs to coordinate in an effective manner and achieve expected outcomes (Karanges et al., 2015).The quality of health care service depends on the quality of interaction between the health care organizations, their staffs and interaction with patients as well. There is enough research data which supports that effective communication helps to achieve positive health outcomes and ensure patient safety. Effective communication is helpful to build adequate connection between the health professionals and the patients. Such connections help to improve the participation of both the health professionals and patients in the care process and enhance the adherence to the recovery process (Vermeir et al., 2015).
However, consequence of ineffective communication has become most common event in the health care organizations. Different consequences of ineffective communication in the health care organizations have been found in many studies (Norouzinia et al., 2016). The main cause of such ineffective interaction is lack of communication between the health care organizations, their staffs and with patients as well. Such communication gap leads to the consequence of different adverse clinical events and death as well. It has been found that different types of medication error has become one of the main reason of increasing death rate worldwide (King et al., 2013). The prevalence of medication error has increased by 38% across the world and ineffective communication has been identified as the one of the most common reason of medication error (apps.who.int, 2018). In this way ineffective communication has created negative impact on the quality of service of health care organizations and patient safety. Due to such situation ineffective communication has become one of the major concern of the health care system (Thorne et al., 2013). Hence, it is important to identify the factors that contribute to the incident of ineffective communication and introduce effective strategies in order to address them in an effective manner.
The purpose of the assignment is to provide a report regarding the incidents that occur due to ineffective communication in health care settings. In this regards the paper will introduce a case study and provide a brief discussion about ineffective communication in health care settings, factors contributing to the events of ineffective communication and impact of ineffective communication. The paper will provide a detail of search strategy of different literatures related to communication in health care. In addition the paper will provide the importance of effective communication and effective strategies to address the factors that contributes to the ineffective communication in order to establish effective communication in health care settings.
Literature Review
The study has used adequate and relevant previous literatures regarding the communication in health care settings in order to gather important information. In order to collect the appropriate and peer reviewed literatures the study has utilised effective databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, Cinhal and Medline. The study has used authentic websites in order to collect relevant data, for example official website of World Health Organization. Appropriate terms or key words have been used in order to search relevant books, journals, articles and other texts regarding the communication in hospital settings. For example, ineffective communication in health care setting, communication in health care, impact of communication in health care, causes of ineffective communication in health care, importance of effective communication in health care organizations and strategies to improve communication in health care settings. The literature sources have been selected on the basis of easy language, proper structure, relevant content and current year (that is not older than 5 years). Such search strategy has helped to identify the most relevant previous literatures and derive the conclusion of the report.
Marry is a 55 years old woman suffering from extensive psych history. She was admitted on the mental health department of ABC health care. After few days she was released from the hospital ensuring that adequate treatment has been provided to her. However, his husband has requested not to discharge her as she sometimes behaves like a normal person but at a sudden moment he started to attack nearby person when the past trauma of physical assault triggers the symptoms of psychotic disorder. However, the information is not transferred to the unit director and the matter have been neglected. After that it has been reported by her husband that upon her release she has gone to harm a family member assuming him as the person that had physically assaulted her. Thus, Marry has been readmitted to the hospital for proper diagnosis of illness and treatment.
It has been found that there are adequate literatures that have indicated that communication is the most important element that helps to establish correlation between different health care services, health professionals and patients as well (Bramhall, 2014). On the other hand, poor communication leads to the consequence of adverse clinical events and death in some cases (Thorne et al., 2013). One of the most contributing factors in the ineffective communication in health care settings is lack of interaction between the different health workers. With the increasing technology, it has become a trend to collect data and information through the electronic process. However, it has reduced the verbal communication within the health workers (King, 2013). The service providers do not communicate with each other, health care organization do not communicate, thus lack correlation, doctors and nurses do not communicate properly, the human resource department of the hospitals do not communicate with the staffs and the policy makers do not communicate to the people, thus fail to understand the requirements of the people. Due to such conditions poor communication, miscommunication or no communication occur in the health care settings (Thorne et al., 2013).
Discussion of Literature
Besides the discrimination that present in the medical department, lack of communication between the health professionals and the patients also contributes to the consequence of ineffective communication. Patients lack information regarding their treatments and face numerous difficulties in accessing their records. They have to pay for every copy of their medical record. For such reason they avoid to collect information, thus avoid communication with the health care staffs (King, 2013). In addition, lack of proper training is another important factor that contributes to the consequence of ineffective communication. It has been found that most of the health care staffs underestimate the importance of effective communication, thus do not take proper training for communicating in an effective manner. Such lack of knowledge regarding communication leads to the events of ineffective communication and adverse clinical events in the clinical practice (Sprangers, Dijkstra & Romijn-Luijten, 2015). The case study is indicated failure in communicating properly with the patient and her family and between the departments of the health care, thus, the health care professional has failed to provide proper treatment in the first attempt and the patient has readmitted in the hospital.
The ineffective communication mostly results in poor health outcomes as identified in the case of Marry. Due to lack of communication, miscommunication occur between the health professionals and other health workers (Norouzinia et al., 2016). Study has indicated that, such miscommunication affect the transfer of the information from one department to another. Thus, incomplete or incorrect transfer of records occurs which results in the poor treatment of the patient and increase the health risk (King, 2013). Furthermore, wrong diagnosis, wrong treatment, delay in the treatment and wrong medication also associated with ineffective communication. Team work is also affected by ineffective communication and health professional lack cooperation (Arnold & Boggs, 2015). Due to lack of communication between the patient and health professionals, the patient and the family members lack adequate information about the treatment, thus, the medical team face difficulties in getting consent from the patient or family regarding the treatment. Poor communication leads to the lack of understanding about self-management of the patient as well (Aebersold, Tschannen & Sculli, 2013). Due to lack of training, health professionals fail to communicate effective and forget to forget to provide respect to the dignity, culture and values of the patient and other staffs, thus leads to the consequence of ethical issue in the clinical settings (Liaw et al., 2014). In this way ineffective communication leads to malpractice, lack of patient safety and even death for some severe cases, thus, affects the quality of health care service.
Case Study
Many studies have indicated the benefits and importance of effective communication in the health care settings. Most of the decision regarding the diagnosis of a patient comes from the interaction between the patient and health professional. Thus, effective communication between the health professional and the patient helps to understand the health issues of the patient in an effective manner, thus, helps to introduce adequate treatment in order to resolve the issue (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014). Effective communication that includes respect for the dignity, culture and values of the patient helps to get the consent of the patient and family members regarding the treatment process. Hence, it improves the involvement of the patient and the health professional in the treatment process (Riley, 2015). Communication between the health professionals helps to ensure correct medication, treatment and diagnosis, thus helps to reduce the risk of medication error or malpractice and ensure patient safety in an effective manner (Vermeir et al., 2015). Thus, it can be said that effective communication helps to achieve positive health outcomes through reducing the risk of malpractice and improve the interrelation between the health professionals and patient as well.
In order to improve the communication in health care setting and provide adequate care to the people with need while ensuring the safety of the patient, it is important to introduce effective strategies and implement them in an effective manner. One of the most effective management theory that can be utilised in this case is the Johari window theory of management. The theory is proposed by American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham. It is one of the most effective theory that helps to understand the effect of proper communication and improve the communication within a group. There are four windows of the theory such as Open arena, blind spot, hidden area and unknown. The four windows help to signify personal feelings, motivation and information (Hargie, 2016). Thus, using such management theory effective communication could be introduced in the health care settings and avoid the malpractice like the case of Marry.
First, it is recommended to use the Johari window for self-assessment of the individual health professional. It could help to understand the relationship with oneself and others as well. With the utilisation of the model the health professional could describe their own personality and understand others personality in an effective manner (Saxena, 2015). Thus, they could communicate with each other without any hesitation.
Factors Contributing to Ineffective Communication
Second, a communication training program need to be arranged for the health professionals and the other staffs of the health care organization. The training session would help them to learn the effective process of communication and the importance of communication. It would help the health care team to coordinate with each other. In this session they could learn about the way to fulfil the four aspects of Johari windows theory. It would help them to improve communication skill and motivate them for equal participation in the team management (Weller, Boyd & Cumin, 2014). Such skill could help them to encourage the patient to involve in the treatment process and facilitate the recovery.
Third, a feedback process need to be implemented. Through the feedback process the health professionals and the patient could explain their experience and needs. The area of development could be identified through the feedback process. The health professional could evaluate their service and take steps to improve their skills in an effective manner. Such feedback process would help to understand the satisfaction level of the patents and families as well (O’hagan et al., 2014).
Fourth, the system need to be improved. It is important to improve the process of providing medical records to the patients and to the different department of the health care organization. Improving the system could help the health professionals to access records. It would help them to get adequate information about the health condition of the patients and could introduce adequate measures for the treatment of the patient. Such information transfer process could help the medical team to improve team management and provide quality service to the patients (Meuter et al., 2015).
Fifth, improving emotional intelligence is another important in intervention in order to improve the communication in the health care settings. Emotional intelligence would help understand own emotion and that of others. It could help to differentiate between various feelings and prioritise them appropriately. With the improvement in emotional intelligence the health professional could communicate with other health staffs and patients by providing respect to their dignity, culture and values, thus could help to establish empathy (Aradilla?Herrero, Tomás?Sábado & Gómez?Benito, 2014).
Furthermore, the health care professionals need to communicate with the family member of the patients. In some cases, patients has been found to be unable to communicate. In such cases the health professionals need to communicate with the family members and understand their concern regarding the patents health. The information gathered from the patient’s family need to be investigated properly and inform them about the treatment process. It would help the health professional to establish effective communication and proceed with the treatment with proper information, thus, could avoid the issue of mal practice or wrong treatment (McCabe & Timmins, 2013).
Impact of Ineffective Communication
In case of Marry such recommendation could be helpful as with such strategies the communication gap within the health care settings could be mitigated and information about the patient would be processed accurately. No information would be avoid and proper diagnosis of the disease of the illness would be performed due to the improved communication between the health professionals and patient as well (Riley, 2015). Such strategies would help to resolve the health issue in the first attempt thus, could reduce the risk of readmission.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion regarding the case of Marry, it can be said that, ineffective communication leads to the consequence of various clinical adverse events such as wrong diagnosis, wrong medication, wrong treatment and even death. Thus, it has become one of the main concern of the health care system worldwide. Hence it is important to establish effective communication in the health care settings in order to improve the quality of health service and ensure patient safety. Many factors have been identified that contribute to the events of ineffective communication, such as, poor communication between health workers, patients and lack of adequate training. Thus, it is important to introduce proper interventions and implement them in an effective manner. Johari windows theory has been identified as the one of the most effective theory to resolve the communication issue. It is expected that with the strategies provided in the report the issue of ineffective communication could be resolved effectively.
References:
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