Essay Example: Improving Patient Safety Through Effective Communication in Healthcare

Introduction

Delivery processes in today’s healthcare system heavily involve patient handoffs from one medical practitioner to the other (Foronda et al., 2015). These medical practitioners have different levels of occupation training, and education and therefore there is a great need for effective communication between each and every one of them to ensure the safety of the patients. A patient who has been admitted to a hospital for a two-day visit may interact with at least 30 different hospital employees including nurses, physicians, and many other staff (Burgener, 2020). Excellent and effective clinical service, therefore, involves many instances where important and critical information must be accurately communicated to ensure patient safety at all times. The patient is at risk when healthcare professionals are not effectively communicating. The risk is brought about by communication misinterpretation, lack of critical information, and unclear orders that might have been through the phone.

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Poor communication creates room for medical errors to occur and in the healthcare industry, a small error might cause an unexpected death of a patient as well as patient injury (Hassan, 2018). In today’s medical practice, the biggest and most widespread medical error problems are caused by ineffective communication. Therefore, the most affected persons by ineffective communication of healthcare providers are patients who may end up getting sicker than they were when they were first admitted at the hospital or they could even lose their lives to these errors. For patients to be well taken care of and to minimize medical errors at the clinical level, the healthcare providers at the hospital should strive to always ensure that information on the patient is effectively communicated during a shift change and that the patient’s information is properly documented for use by the next healthcare provider (Hassan, 2018).

Impact of Effective and Ineffective Communication and Teamwork on Hospital Staff

Teamwork and effective communication are the key aspects for proper service delivery among hospital staff (Gluyas, 2015). Since these healthcare providers have different levels of education and skillsets, it would be catastrophic if they would not work together for the greater good of the patients and the hospital at large. Healthcare providers most of the time work in shifts and for them to ensure that patients are well taken care of, they have to effectively communicate to their colleagues on the patient’s medical history to ensure zero medical errors (Gluyas, 2015). Through the delegation of work and breaking it into various tasks, the management of various complex medical work would be made easier and the level of risk brought down. Little to no medical errors will boost the esteem of healthcare providers as well as their patients because the services they offer will be of value and their success will attract more clients.

One individual cannot assure that a patient receives the highest standard of care and, therefore, through teamwork, this can be ensured as different individuals will be dealing with a single patient and if the information on the patient was effectively passed down then excellent service will be delivered to the patient. Through teamwork, none of the healthcare providers will feel left out. Through this inclusivity, the information will be properly and effectively communicated thereby creating an environment where accountability is the order of the day and this, in turn, will minimize the number of accidents and errors made in practice (Santos et al., 2014).

Impact of Effective and Ineffective Communication and Teamwork on the Hospital

Teamwork by healthcare providers has a big impact on the image of a hospital and the services it provides (Santos et al., 2014). Individuals will go to a particular hospital only if the reviews that they received from others are good or if they themselves had previously received excellent services. If the cases of medical errors and accidents are high in a particular hospital then there will be little to no people (Polis et al.,2015). If well used, communication provides clear, consistent, and easy nursing services guaranteeing customer satisfaction as well as creating a good image for the hospital. Excellent service will also ensure a continuous flow of patients through the hospital thereby increasing returns (Polis et al., 2015). Therefore, this would therefore be a symbiotic relationship as both parties will be well satisfied.

There is a continuous need for hospital management to ensure that their staff is well-trained in effective communication practices as this will ensure proper medical service delivery. The core business of a hospital should be to provide excellent medical services to ensure that lives are saved and that illnesses are contained (Rosen et al, 2018). To improve interpersonal relationships and subsequently improve patient care, effective communication is the key factor (Rosen et al., 2018). A nurse should therefore have sincere intentions towards understanding patients and the feelings they express as this will be a big factor in quality recovery and care of the patient. Hospitals can only thrive in service delivery and reduce risks of the medical service errors they offer when there is good teamwork among its members as well as efficient and effective communication throughout the hospital.

References

Burgener, A. M. (2020). Enhancing communication to improve patient safety and to increase patient satisfaction. The health care manager, 39(3), 128-132. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32701609/

Foronda, C., McWilliams, B., & McArthur, E. (2016). Interprofessional communication in healthcare: An integrative review. Nurse education in practice, 19, 36-40. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27428690/

Hassan, I. (2018). Avoiding medication errors through effective communication in the healthcare environment. Movement, Health & Exercise, 7(1), 113-126. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3573437

Gluyas, H. (2015). Effective communication and teamwork promote patient safety. Nursing Standard (2014+), 29(49), 50. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26243123/

Mujumdar, S., & Santos, D. (2014). Teamwork and communication: an effective approach to patient safety. HMA, 50(1), 119. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24938029/

Martin, G., Khajuria, A., Arora, S., King, D., Ashrafian, H., & Darzi, A. (2019). The impact of mobile technology on teamwork and communication in hospitals: a systematic review. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 26(4), 339-355. https://www.psnet.ahrq.gov/issue/impact-mobile-technology-teamwork-and-communication-hospitals-systematic-review

Polis, S., Higgs, M., Manning, V., Netto., & Fernandez, R. (2015) Factors contributing to nursing teamwork in an acute care tertiary hospital, Collegian. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2015.09.002

Rosen, M. A., Diaz-Granados, D., Dietz, A. S., Benishek, L. E., Thompson, D., Pronovost, P. J., & Weaver, S. J. (2018). Teamwork in healthcare: Key discoveries enabling safer, high-quality care. American Psychologist, 73(4), 433. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Teamwork-in-Healthcare%3A-Key-Discoveries-Enabling-Rosen-DiazGranados/57a5f51c2ba16d2f5c7338b257c5bc02100ce01b