Importance of Effective Communication in Health Care
Discuss about the Effective communication in health care and Self-awareness.
There is a pressing need in the health care industry for the grievances of the patients to be heard and detailed information about the care to be provided to the patient population as well in order to improve the safety and efficacy of the patient centred care (King and Hoppe 2013). Effective communication strategies for heath care construct attempt to bridge the communication gap in the health care and contributes significantly to ensuring patient safety and quality of the care that is being provided. There are various conceptions within effective communication such as emotional intelligence, empathy, self awareness. This essay will attempt to discuss how self awareness informs effective communication in health care, how it is applied by the health care workers and the benefits of this concept in a health care scenario.
Communication and interaction has multidimensional impact on the health care. According to the standards of the good medical practice in Australia, each and every health care professional is accountable for fostering shared decision making in the healthcare industry (Medicalboard.gov.au 2018). On a more elaborative note, the patient have a right to understand their health concerns and be involved in the health care decision making process. Hence effective and optimal information sharing and communication is a mandate of the good medical practice. According to the Oho.qld.gov.au (2018), each and every individual that presents in the health care industry has a right to be effectively informed about the health services provided to them, the expenses involved and the treatment options available to them. Along with that, the patients and their family members have a lawful right to receive the above mentioned communication in a manner that they will understand. This are also the sections where the effective communication plays a fundamental role, it is the potent medium between the health care providers and the patients that can improve the overall satisfaction of the patients and be able to provide better long term health outcomes. Hence, effective communication provides empowerment, sense of value and control to the patients and help in reinstating shared decision making and patient centred care. Hence, undoubtedly effective communication has a tremendous use in health care hence the health care workers also need to practice effective communication optimally (Curtis et al. 2013).
According to the national health survey data, it is very clear that 60% of the patient population of the Australian demographics had been reported to have various different difficulties in communication and it has been attributed to poor attitude in the health care professionals, lack of inadequate information sharing, providing incorrect or misleading information, and not accommodating special needs (Oho.qld.gov.au 2018). Now it has to be mentioned in this context, that communication has two sides, verbal and nonverbal. The inadequacy in both verbal and nonverbal communication can deteriorate the end result or the outcome of the interaction, which in health care will not only breach the patient centeredness of the care but can also lead to misdiagnosis, medical errors and fatal outcomes of the patients. One of the greatest elements influencing the communication skills of an individual is the presence of self awareness in the individual (Ellington et al. 2012).
Self-Awareness and its Impact on Communication
Self awareness can be defined as the process that provides a particular health acre individual with the opportunity to examine their own feelings, behavior, emotions and the attitude. It has to be mentioned that self awareness is a skill that provides the individuals with the opportunity to not only better understand their personal nature, strengths and weaknesses, but it also be able to understand other people with better clarity along with their needs and grievances. According to the Rasheed (2015), it has to be mentioned that self awareness is a complex phenomenon and it is very difficult for an individual to be acutely self aware in the present situation. Researchers are of the opinion that the idea of knowing about oneself is a very complex and critical pursuit, and is a time consuming process involving struggle of continuous change. However, it has to be mentioned self awareness. By definition the self awareness is a mental, physical and psychosocial attributes integrated in the human psyche in order to be able to be managing the societal interactions with the help of encompassing emotional intelligence and empathy with the assistance of acknowledging one’s own feelings and thoughts. In the health care context, communication is needed to be in accordance with compassion and empathy for the patients and their struggle and suffering facilitated by the burden of the diseases. According to the Eckroth-Bucher (2010), the lack of self awareness or a connection to personal thoughts and feelings can never facilitate the ability of an individual to be able to understand the feelings and thoughts of another human being.
In order to understand how self awareness is used by the health care workforce in the care scenario, the relationship between self awareness and the client care relationship. It has to be mentioned that while in the hospice stay the patient spends the most of their time with the care providers, especially the nurses. The concept of self awareness is used as a tool to improve the therapeutic relationship with the patient and be able to help the care professional become aware of how he or she can function in a situation and whether it is concurrent with the professional roles and responsibility of the care provider. On a more elaborative note, the Eckroth-Bucher (2010) had stated that self-awareness involves the cerebral exercise of introspection performed by an individual. It is the process of getting to know how a person is and the important things in life to that person and the influence of it on the everyday life aspects. However, by the health care workers, the self awareness is not a tool for only self discovery or understanding of the skills that one care provider might have. The self awareness in the care scenario is also used as the reflection tool for exploring and understanding how personal attitude, beliefs and values can influence others. In the communication with the patients, the nonverbal cues of the communication such as the body language, approach, gestures and even the tone of voice can have a significant impact on the communication quality and response nature elicited from the patient (Scheick 2011). Hence, when used as the tool for reflecting and understanding how personal beliefs and thoughts impact communication approach and influence the responsiveness of the recipient, the patients in this case can help in improving the health care worker improving their approach according to the needs of the patients and adhering to the legislative protocols and guidelines. Hence reflective practice and personal development is one sector where the health care workforce utilizes the concept of self awareness to improve their practice competency and improve the nonverbal communication attributes when working with patients (Sinclair et al. 2017).
Use of Self-Awareness in Health Care
Another sector within the health care where the health care professionals utilize self awareness skills while communicating and providing care to the patients, this transformative and dynamic process also plays a fundamental role while a nurse is attempting to establish a therapeutic relationship with a patient. According to the Ünal (2012), it has to be mentioned that for the communication to be effective and fruitful in the patient-carer interaction, a mutually respectful and responsive interpersonal relationship between the both parties is crucial. Here, with the help of self awareness the nurse is able to better understand the needs and grievances of the patients as well, helping the approach to be tailor made for each patient while introducing themselves to the patient and establishing a relationship of trust and communication comfort. It is also crucially important when the patient belongs to a culturally diverse setting (Oh et al. 2015). the self awareness provides the care professional with the ideals and respect to different diverse backgrounds and be able to understand and acknowledge the respect and cultural inclusion they would have expected if they were receiving care. This introspection activity helps in understanding the cultural safety and how it can be incorporated in the therapeutic care setting for the patient and the exact communication or interaction approach. The third most important sector where the use of self awareness is crucial is the incorporation of shared decision making in the care scenario. It has to be mentioned that according to the standards of the Good medical Practice, shared decision making is a fundamental requirement of effective and safe patient centred care (). According to the Dossey and Keegan (2012), the patient participation is a very complex aspect, although the patients feel empowered and valued in the care setting if their views and demands are given priorities in the care planning and implementation process; the lack of knowledge about the complex medical terminologies, acceptance of the new role, morbidity, lack of confidence, and other social factors complicate the process of active shared decision making. In this case, self awareness is exercised by the nurses that attempt to understand how factors such as personal beliefs, type of sickness, desire to remain in control, social status, ethnic background, and the health worker-patient relationship impact the decision making process. And hence communicate with the patient in an easy to understand manner and involve them in decision making in the processes that they can understand and relate to. Along with that the health care workers can also apply self-awareness to influence the process of decision making for the patients as well, so that they can be able to make decisions on their own regarding their health (Arnold and Boggs 2015).
Benefits of Self-Awareness in Health Care
Considering the benefits of the self awareness in improving the communication between the patients and health care workers, the impact is multidimensional. It has to be mentioned that self awareness is a very important tool for personal growth and in turn it helps an individual to manage their own self under any circumstances and also be able to improve performance. In the field of nursing, it helps in strengthening competency to provide high quality care and greater satisfaction in the client care. This process helps in incorporating a dynamic and transformative process of continuous self reflection and change. Along with that, it also incorporates self assessment in the construct of care guide behavior and communication in a genuine way, improving the interpersonal relationships with patients. According to the Scheick (2011), self awareness not only improves care outcomes and communication, but it also aids in better management of the personal stress in their lives. Without effective mindful self awareness, the care providers can project unacknowledged emotional encumbrances into the care relationship affecting the interaction in turn. Self awareness therefore, not only improves verbal and nonverbal gestures and communication of health care workers, it helps them better tehr personal values, attitudes and principles to feel the suffering of those they care for and be able to provide them support that is most useful and most needed by them (Slatore et al. 2012).
On a concluding note, communication practice that has a two way information sharing process that involves parties conveying and receiving messages that are effectively or easily heard and understood. It has to be understood in this context that the effective communication is one of the most important and essential tools for providing safe and effective patient centred care to the patients. It has to be mentioned that patient centred care has become the need of the hour in the present day situation and in order to provide a care that in not only optimally safe and efficient, there is need for the health care providers to design and implement a care program that takes into consideration each and every wish and preference of the patient and even their family members. Self awareness provides the care professionals with the opportunity to better understand their personal characteristic traits such as wishes, demands and values and in turn helps gain a better understanding of the demands and the grievances of the patients in the different care settings resulting into better communication
References:
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