Poor Communication in the Healthcare Setting, Essay Example

Describing a poor practice and its consequences

Healthcare improvement is a subject that receives much attention from various stakeholders. Healthcare provision requires synchronizing the providers, financiers, equipment, and patients. In the provision of health care, communication is a crucial aspect. Effective communication between nurses and physicians is essential to care. There are situations where this link is most crucial, such as in older patients with comorbidities that require them to move between healthcare settings. Research has gone into the improvement of such crucial components of healthcare, with published work on the state of communication as well as the various suggestions for developing and improving the strategies, along with the creation of proper packing of the information for clarity.

The lack of proper communication in healthcare settings can often lead to adverse medical outcomes. Kunjukunju and Ahmad (2019) reveal how poor communication exists in healthcare settings and its negative effect on quality care. Deficient communication among healthcare providers existed when messages left for physicians were not received, nurses could not read the physician’s orders and not bothering to confirm, and physicians did not have the patience or consideration to listen to nurses’ opinions. These are the most common examples of deficient communication. Kunjukunju and Ahmad (2019)point out that this exists due to an apparent creation of warring factions. This is true since the health care providers often group themselves into factions that feel independent and superior. However, for communication to be efficient in the healthcare system, these factions need to unite and work co-dependently, as Kunjukunju and Ahmad (2019) suggest. Better healthcare outcomes are incredibly independent of effective communication between the different moving parts in healthcare settings.

Communication is a key component across all the steps of the healthcare process. Whether it is in the clinic or healthcare setting comprising of a multi-disciplinary team brainstorming on the relevant treatment options to provide patients with quality care while ensuring patient safety and effective communication should always be present. Across the United States, the lack of interactions in organizations providing care there has been a spike in medical errors and reduced patient outcomes (Ottosen et al., 2019). However, this implies that better communication in the healthcare setting can benefit both patients and healthcare stakeholders. Poor communication in the healthcare setting has been the leading cause of the high cost of medication, poor patient health outcomes, and declined day-to-day operations and working efficiency. With better communication, patients can receive better care and reduces the prospect of medical errors due to better interactions in multi-disciplinary teams to realize improved patient outcomes.

The critical argument of evidence-based practice for resolving poor practice

Patient’s values

Patient satisfaction is one of the reasons healthcare actors must have effective communication to involve them with patient-centered and quality care. Communication in a healthcare setting is one of the most important tools for providing patient care and improving patient satisfaction. Communication is the imparting or exchanging of information or news. The lack of better communication in healthcare settings can be attributed to the prevalence of adverse medical events and mortality rates in the previous five years. This shows that better communication methods would benefit patients and healthcare providers. Effective communication interventions in a healthcare setting, particularly when collaborating with other healthcare professionals in practices and the patient, is imperative in deriving improved clinical outcomes. By interacting effectively, healthcare experts can make informed medical decisions on the approach their treatment plans should take to ensure patient safety.

Patient safety is the priority in any healthcare setting when formulating a treatment plan. However, a treatment plan’s success and patient outcomes depend on effective communication. Poor communication can be detrimental because inaccurate information or lack of clarity makes medical experts make uninformed decisions that are likely to cause adverse medical events in healthcare settings and subsequently negatively affect patient safety. In a study by Greiner and Knebel (2018), an elderly patient hospitalized after falling and injuring her had other underlying issues, including diabetes and heart issues. On visiting a hospital, she interacted with different healthcare professionals, including cardiologists, therapists, and a palliative care nurse (Greiner & Knebel, 2018). After receiving treatment, she was later discharged further information was left with her care for further intervention. However, Greiner and Knebel (2018) denote that the patient was later readmitted to the emergency unit due to a lack of proper communication on her treatment plan leading to an adverse health incident. Such incidents demonstrate the significance of effective communication between healthcare professionals in healthcare settings to realize positive patient outcomes. The absence of coordination between healthcare workers can often result in the prospect of medical errors and, subsequently, adverse medical events. Similar sentiments are raised in O’Daniel and Rosenstein’s (2018) study depicting the effects of lack of coordination on a patient’s healthcare outcomes. More specifically, ambiguous information often leads to inconsistent decisions that might result in medical errors and, in the process, lead to complications that might have been prevented with effective communication between healthcare professionals. There is a need for interventions in healthcare settings to promote healthcare interventions that foster patient safety and enhanced patient outcomes.

Effective communication with patients is extremely important in e healthcare, especially before they leave hospital settings. Poor communication leads to many medical errors at home and in hospitals. The main factors that lead to ineffective communication are mental health status and access to ambiguous information on the part of the healthcare worker. A very strong and powerful relationship exists between a patient and the healthcare professionals in a healthcare setting. As a result, a mutual relationship is formed between the two parties where one party depends on the information that is provided by the other to come up with a solution. The research shows that for healthcare professionals to be of assistance to the patient, he/she must first open good communication with the patient despite the level of knowledge that these professionals have (Kee et al., 2018). Good communication between a patient and healthcare professionals has many advantages discussed in this paper and the roles that good communication plays in the healthcare system.

When a patient relates well to the physician, he or she will feel secure and tend to trust the physician. As a result, the patients will give out all their problems without leaving even a single one. Depending on the physician’s knowledge, he/she will ask for more clarification from the patient to get the specific problem that the patient has (Kee et al., 2018). The physician will then provide the right medication to the patient, and if additional tests are to be done, the physician will recommend the specific one. As a result, the physician will prevent the patient’s severe health complications, thus preventing re-admission and saving the patient’s money. Ultimately, the patient will be satisfied with the services provided in that healthcare setting.

There is the likelihood of chaos erupting when a patient from a different culture and special population does not process the services delivered in a healthcare setting or cannot understand the language used (Foronda, MacWilliams, & McArthur 2016). A misunderstanding between the patient and the professionals in the healthcare setting causes all this. The above scenario can be minimized by ensuring good communication between these patients and healthcare professionals. The physicians have to ensure that they carefully listen to the patients and fully understand them. Suppose the patient does not belong to that neighborhood or does not speak the language used in the healthcare setting. In that case, the physicians should be responsible for finding an interpreter to assist in the communication process (Foronda, MacWilliams, & McArthur, 2016). The relatives of such patients should also assist when needed to have smooth communication between the two parties. All healthcare practitioners should use the teach-back method to ensure that patients know and understand the information given to them (MacLean et al., 2018). The health care providers should communicate so that the patient easily gets what has been said. It should be short, simple terms and sentences using the patient’s language. The advantage of clear communication is the satisfaction of both patients and healthcare providers.

Professional expertise

As the literature suggests, nurse-physician communication has often been studied, and the opinions generally reflect poor communication between the two groups. Studies into the association between nurse-physician collaboration and patients’ outcomes reveal adverse outcomes when inadequate communication exists. Negative outcomes are defined by death or re-admission ratings (Kunjukunju & Ahmad 2019). These are justified situations since most deaths in healthcare settings occur from poor communication over medication or the care that should be provided.

In today’s healthcare setting, the failure of teamwork and collaboration among healthcare professionals has become a critical problem destabilizing many healthcare organizations’ smooth operations. Healthcare organizations often view teamwork and employee collaboration as the most critical factors that result in positive nursing practices and quality healthcare service delivery. Inter-professional teamwork among healthcare professionals and workplace collaboration have improved patient outcomes and quality access to healthcare services. Despite the importance of teamwork and collaboration in healthcare institutions, many nursing homes have failed to capitalize. Instead, it has created a negative working environment, which has decreased employee productivity and morale. When employees fail to collaborate, they always lose trust and needed respect. Employee trust is crucial in improving positive working relationships, job satisfaction, team performance, and openness in sharing organizational information. Workplace collaboration among healthcare employees is critical in ensuring that team members understand one another, gain self-confidence, and create a positive working environment.

Positives can be seen from the research by Kunjukunju and Ahmad (2019), with various suggestions being provided to improve nurse-physician communication. Going through the suggestions, there are quite a several positives that can be achieved. Developing relationships between the two groups is essential to improving communication, which will be based on mutual respect. Another critical means will be the definition of communication strategies: email, pager, voicemail, or fax. This will help improve communication due to the transparent sharing of information at a faster rate. Finally, one workable suggestion would be video conferencing between the nurses and physicians. Video conferencing helps create instant feedback and link off-site nurses and physicians to the patient setting. The suggestions by Kunjukunju and Ahmad (2019) would be workable in any healthcare setting and critically assist in improving communication and hence better care provision.

Critical thinking skills have been strongly linked to improved patient outcomes, safety, and quality of patient care in healthcare organizations. Healthcare professionals must stimulate and lead the dialogue about applying critical thinking skills to overcome some critical healthcare issues affecting healthcare service delivery. Critical thinking and healthcare service delivery should cultivate themselves among the nursing staff. Teamwork and collaboration in the healthcare setting go hand-in-hand. Healthy literacy is increasingly important in today’s complex healthcare informational ecosystem. In developed countries, the nature of healthcare information has created a wealth of accessible information systems through which patients can collaborate effectively with healthcare experts to improve their healthcare outcomes.

When considering the effect of communication in the healthcare setting, patient safety is one of many reasons why effective communication should be enhanced in the healthcare setting. Smith et al. (2020) conducted a research study and found that teamwork and collaboration cannot occur without proper communication. Further, Smith et al. (2020) highlighted that lack of workplace collaboration and teamwork among healthcare professionals is the leading cause of poor healthcare service delivery in many healthcare settings. The literature review of 14 000 hospital deaths identified communication errors as the leading cause of death, twice the lack of workplace collaboration and teamwork (Smith et al., 2020). While effective communication is crucial in ensuring improved patient outcomes, teamwork and workplace collaboration among the nursing staff and patients should be significantly enhanced. Hearn (2021) argues that inter-hospital and intra-hospital collaboration can only occur with effective communication since it involves information sharing. Hearn (2021) further states that transmissions in the healthcare setting and between separate healthcare entities can be achieved better if the healthcare stakeholders maintain quality and improved communication. Capers (2018) found that many healthcare settings always encounter several barriers due to poor communication. The movement of patients from one hospital facility to another, sharing of medical records, and transportation of critical medical equipment all need clear communication between healthcare professionals, patients, and other healthcare providers. Poor communication regarding patient interactions with nurses, employee collaboration, and proper teamwork among healthcare professionals has been costly.

When addressing the issues of collaboration and teamwork among healthcare professionals, one must recall the importance of critical thinking skills in healthcare delivery. Capers (2018) found that collaboration among healthcare professionals is always driven by the ability of nurses and other healthcare professionals to think critically when solving organizational problems. The process of concluding, analyzing, and interpreting the medical or patient’s data is driven by the ability of healthcare professionals to think critically. Capers (2018) argues that nurses must consistently demonstrate high critical thinking skills when making clinical judgments and consider ethical, therapeutic, and diagnostic dimensions to solve healthcare concerns. Nurses must always think critically, be motivated, and demonstrate fair-mindedness, creativity, intuition, and flexibility. When healthcare professionals collaborate, they can easily solve the patient’s problem based on the assessment data. With proper critical thinking skills, nurses and other healthcare professionals can effectively evaluate and identify the nursing care outcome and assess the best medication procedure available to help a patient overcome their problems (Capers, 2018). Healthcare information should be produced and used in a meaningful manner. Healthcare professionals should not take advantage of patients because they lack healthcare literacy but should act within their consent while guided by nursing ethics and standards to help patients overcome their medical conditions.

Evidence-Based Research

Effective communication is interlinked with evidence-based practice (EBP) to derive improved clinical outcomes. According to a study by Dadich and Hosseinzadeh (2016), healthcare professionals must communicate effectively to appropriately apply EBPs in healthcare settings, and the channels through which they share such information affect health outcomes. Nowadays, healthcare providers, per the code of ethics, are required to incorporate recent EBPs in practice to provide quality care and realize positive patient outcomes. Such outcomes can be realized when healthcare professionals communicate with patients and their counterparts in practice to provide patient-centered care. That notwithstanding, involving the patient in understanding the condition they are grappling with and formulating a treatment plan plays a significant role in providing quality care and realizing positive health outcomes. Doing so demonstrates the significance of utilizing communication to engage patients and, in the process, enhance patient satisfaction.

Undeniably, the integration of EBPs in healthcare contributes to enhanced health outcomes, promotes the distribution of healthcare resources, and influences the formulation of government policy (Dadich & Hosseinzadeh, 2016). Through EBPs, healthcare professionals can seek government intervention in helping assist patients in vulnerable conditions to realize better healthcare outcomes by availing healthcare resources such as access to comprehensive insurance that covers their pre-existing conditions to prevent them from finding quality care. In addition, the government can utilize recent research to understand how the different demographics in the country are grappling with various conditions. According to Dadich and Hosseinzadeh (2016), identifying these areas helps distribute healthcare resources effectively. For example, with recent evidence, governments can easily identify regions with vulnerable populations and provide them with more resources compared to economically empowered ones. However, governments can utilize recent healthcare evidence with the help of healthcare professionals to determine the areas of need. While better communication would ensure the efficient distribution of resources, poor communication could jeopardize vulnerable patients due to a lack of access to the much-needed resources to receive quality care.

Recommendations

In summary, healthcare organizations often view teamwork and employee collaboration as the most critical factors that result in positive nursing practices and quality healthcare service delivery. When employees fail to teamwork or collaborate, they always lose trust and needed respect. Employee trust is crucial in improving positive working relationships, job satisfaction, team performance, and openness in sharing organizational information. Poor communication in the healthcare setting has been the leading cause of the high cost of medication, poor patient health outcomes, and declined day-to-day operations and working efficiency. Poor communication has been highly costly regarding patient interactions with nurses, employee collaboration, and proper teamwork among healthcare professionals.

To this end, for better healthcare outcomes in a given healthcare setting, cooperation between healthcare actors is imperative in guaranteeing patient safety and providing quality care. Nowadays, the use of EBPs has become relevant to be updated with recent healthcare practices to provide patient-centered care and improve patient outcomes. Effective communication between these parties can yield the desired outcomes in healthcare settings, and the contrary can often lead to adverse medical incidents. More particularly, nursing professionals in a multi-disciplinary setting must frequently interact to make informed decisions on the appropriate medical interventions to safeguard patient safety and improve their clinical outcomes. In simple terms, medical experts are recommended to integrate communication tools in the workplace to facilitate constant interactions on medical issues, including tracing treatment plans and understanding the appropriate evidence-based interventions to adopt when treating or discharging a patient. Proper communication between different departments in a hospital setting is important in ensuring their consistent conveyance of information to eradicate the prospect of ambiguity, considering that a patient’s life depends on accurate information from physicians.

Healthcare providers also have a role in ensuring that healthcare settings facilitate effective communication. Given the need for healthcare professionals to interact, healthcare providers must ensure that a company policy compels every employee to communicate effectively, and mechanisms must be implemented to track such events to avoid the prospect of victimization. The same applies to consumers who comprise patients that seek healthcare services in the facility. Regardless of their cultural background, they will be required to provide physicians with accurate information about their medical condition to allow them to make informed decisions on the appropriate treatment intervention they can adopt to realize positive health outcomes. In addition, healthcare providers must provide additional resources for training healthcare professionals on effective communication. Doing so ensures that all the medical experts are on board and fosters compliance with organization policy and code of conduct.

That notwithstanding, the community and government bodies play a significant role in providing healthcare actors and medical personnel with space to implement their interventions to provide patients with quality care. Both parties must promote interactions with each other, given that the community and government rely on the same personnel to deduce areas in the population that require more medical attention. It also informs the need for government to invest more resources in research to study healthcare issues affecting different demographics and formulate recommendations on how government can deal with healthcare problems affecting the population. By doing so, researchers can also provide healthcare professionals with additional insights on the most recent and effective EBPs they can incorporate in the healthcare setting to provide patients with quality care and improve their clinical outcomes.

References

Capers, T. (2018). Working Together to Improve Community-Level Health: The Evolution of the New York City Food & Fitness Partnership. Health Promotion Practice, 19(1_suppl), 57S62S.

Dadich, A., & Hosseinzadeh, H. (2016). Communication channels to promote evidence-based practice: a survey of primary care clinicians to determine perceived effects. Health Research Policy and Systems, 14(1), 1-12.

Foronda, C., MacWilliams, B., & McArthur, E. (2016). Interprofessional communication in healthcare: An integrative review. Nurse education in practice, 19, 36-40.

Greiner, A. C., & Knebel, E. (2018). Challenges Facing the Health System and Implications for Educational Reform. Nih.gov; National Academies Press https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221522/

Hearn, J. (2021). Interprofessional Escape Room: Evaluating Teamwork among Healthcare Profession Students (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Arizona.).

Kee, J. W., Khoo, H. S., Lim, I., & Koh, M. Y. (2018). Communication skills in patient-doctor interactions: learning from patient complaints. Health Professions Education, 4(2), 97-106.

Kunjukunju, A., & Ahmad, A. (2019). Effective communication among doctors and nurses: Barriers as perceived by doctors. The Malaysian Journal of Nursing (MJN), 11(2), 3-11.

MacLean, S., Kelly, M., Geddes, F., Della, P., (2018). Evaluating the Use of Teach-Back in Simulation Training to Improve Discharge Communication Practices of Undergraduate Nursing Students., E., Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 22, 13-21

O’Daniel, M., & Rosenstein, A. H. (2018). Professional Communication and Team Collaboration. NCBI; Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2637/

Ottosen, T., Mani, N. S., & Fratta, M. N. (2019). Health information literacy awareness and capacity building: present and future. IFLA journal, 45(3), 207-215. https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035219857441

Smith, C. A., Keselman, A., Wilson, A. J., & Midón, M. N. (2020). Consumer health literacy, the National Library of Medicine, and the public library: Bridging the gaps. In Roles and Responsibilities of Libraries in Increasing Consumer Health Literacy and Reducing Health Disparities. Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0065- 283020200000047015