Effective Healthcare Communication Research Articles

How can we contribute more to implementation of effective Healthcare Communication? Brief EACH Report by Evelyn van Weel, the President

How can we contribute more to implementation of effective Healthcare Communication? Brief EACH Report by Evelyn van Weel, the President

Hispanics and effective health care communication in the United States of America: a corpus-based analysis

Health care reform and immigration reform are heated subjects in the United States of America. The main research question of this paper links the two by analyzing the effectiveness of government communication about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) towards Hispanics. The expansion of health insurance does not necessarily ensure access to care for all members of this minority group. Apart from questions of eligibility, immigrants face other obstacles, such as language, cultural differences, and perceptions about health care. These realities should be taken into consideration when communicating with Latinos, but was this the case for ACA? This paper presents the results of a corpus-based research of six government sources and six sources from non-profit organizations on ACA. An analysis of effective communication using 11 parameters was performed on this corpus and showed that undeniable communicative flaws, together with the too frequent lack of linguistic accuracy in Spanish, point out the need for experts when it comes to communicate publically with ethnic minorities.

High fidelity simulator experience for enhancing communication effectiveness: Applications to quality and safety education for nurses

The United States Joint Commission identified miscommunication as the main cause of unexpected injuries and mortality not related to the patient’s medical condition. One strategy for improving information transfer and inter-professional communication is the Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation (SBAR) communication model. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of exposure to a real time high fidelity simulation experience. A quasi-experimental design, consisting of one treatment group was conducted. A purposeful sample of N = 45 respondents was drawn from students registered in an undergraduate level clinical course. Pre-tests and post-tests based on the American Association of Colleges of Nursing's (AACN's) Quality and Safety in Nursing Education (QSEN) were administered to measure if exposure to the simulation training impacted knowledge and attitudes regarding communication in the delivery of patient care. Results based on a paired t-test revealed an 8.27 point increase in scores after exposure to the intervention. This outcome was highly significant ( df = 44, t = -4.86, p = .000). Although a few students did not appear to benefit, results suggest that exposure to the SBAR model during a high fidelity simulation experience is generally a successful method for enhancing student knowledge and attitudes regarding effective communication in health care.

Health literacy and its importance for effective communication. Part 2

This is the second of two articles exploring the concept of health literacy, an often hidden barrier to effective healthcare communication. Part 1 was published in April ( Lambert and Keogh 2014 ). This article explains how to detect low levels of health literacy among parents and children, and outlines the challenges to assessing health literacy levels, including the stigma and discrimination some people experience. Some basic healthcare communication strategies for supporting health literacy in practice are suggested.

Health literacy and its importance for effective communication. Part 1

This is the first of two articles exploring the concept of health literacy, an often hidden barrier to effective healthcare communication. The authors define the components of health literacy, as well as describing the extent and implications of limited health literacy for parents/caregivers and their children. The article also identifies the link between poor health literacy and health outcomes and outlines a framework for adolescent health literacy. Part two will be published in May.

Developing Assertiveness Skills for Health and Social Care Professionals Phillips Annie Developing Assertiveness Skills for Health and Social Care Professionals288pp £35 9781846199776 1846199778 Radcliffe

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION in health care is paramount; being able to communicate clearly and honestly without undue avoidance, aggression or stress is a crucial skill for healthcare practitioners.

An Emergency System to Improve Ambulance Dispatching, Ambulance Diversion and Clinical Handover Communication—A Proposed Model

Effective communication in healthcare is important and especially critical in emergency situations. In this paper we propose a new comprehensive emergency system which facilitates the communication process in emergency cases from ambulance dispatch to the patient's arrival and handover in the hospital. The proposed system has been designed to facilitate and computerize all the processes involved in an accident from finding the nearest ambulance through to accessing a patient's online health record which can assist in pre-hospital treatments. The proposed system also locates the nearest hospital specializing in the patient's condition and will communicate patient identification to the emergency department. The components of the proposed system and the technologies used in building this system are outlined in this paper as well as the challenges expected and proposed solutions to these challenges.

Using an objective structured video exam to identify differential understanding of aspects of communication skills

Background: Effective communication in health care is associated with patient satisfaction and improved clinical outcomes. Professional schools increasingly incorporate communication training into their curricula. The objective structured video exam (OSVE) is a video-based examination that provides an economical way of assessing students’ knowledge of communication skills. This study presents a scoring strategy that enables blueprinting of an OSVE to consensus guidelines, to determine which aspects of communication skills create the most difficulty for students to understand and to what degree understanding improves through experiential communication skills training.Methods: Five interactions between a healthcare professional and client were scripted and filmed using standardized patients. The dialogues were mapped onto the Kalamazoo consensus statement by having five communication experts view each video and identify effective and ineffective use of communication skills. Undergraduate students enrolled in a communications course completed an OSVE on three occasions.Results: A total of 79 students completed at least one testing session. The scores assigned supported the validity of the scoring strategy as an indication of knowledge growth. Considerable variability was observed across Kalamazoo sub-domains.Conclusion: With further refining, this scoring approach may prove useful for educators to tailor their education and assessment practices to specific consensus guidelines.

Fostering the development of effective person-centered healthcare communication skills: An interprofessional shared learning model

To describe the implementation of an interprofessional shared learning model designed to promote the development of person-centered healthcare communication skills. Master of social work (MSW) and doctor of physical therapy (DPT) degree students. The model used evidence-based principles of effective healthcare communication and shared learning methods; it was aligned with student learning outcomes contained in MSW and DPT curricula. Students engaged in 3 learning sessions over 2 days. Sessions involved interactive reflective learning, simulated role-modeling with peer assessment, and context-specific practice of communication skills. The perspective of patients/clients was included in each learning activity. Activities were evaluated through narrative feedback. Students valued opportunities to learn directly from each other and from healthcare consumers. Important insights and directions for future interprofessional learning experiences were gleaned from model implementation. The interprofessional shared learning model shows promise as an effective method for developing person-centered communication skills.

Applying Weick's model of organizing to health care and health promotion: Highlighting the central role of health communication

ObjectiveCommunication is a crucial process in the effective delivery of health care services and the promotion of public health. However, there are often tremendous complexities in using communication effectively to provide the best health care, direct the adoption of health promoting behaviors, and implement evidence-based public health policies and practices. This article describes Weick's model of organizing as a powerful theory of social organizing that can help increase understanding of the communication demands of health care and health promotion. The article identifies relevant applications from the model for health communication research and practice. ConclusionWeick's model of organizing is a relevant and heuristic theoretical perspective for guiding health communication research and practice. There are many potential applications of this model illustrating the complexities of effective communication in health care and health promotion. Practice implicationsWeick's model of organizing can be used as a template for guiding both research and practice in health care and health promotion. The model illustrates the important roles that communication performs in enabling health care consumers and providers to make sense of the complexities of modern health care and health promotion, select the best strategies for responding effectively to complex health care and health promotion situations, and retain relevant information (develop organizational intelligence) for guiding future responses to complex health care and health promotion challenges.

Environmental factors that influence communication between people with communication disability and their healthcare providers in hospital: a review of the literature within the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework

The importance of effective healthcare communication between healthcare providers and people needing healthcare is well established. People with communication disabilities are at risk of not being able to communicate effectively with their healthcare providers and this might directly compromise their health, healthcare and their right to participate actively in decisions about their healthcare. This paper reviews the literature on the environmental factors that influence communication between adults with communication disabilities and their healthcare providers in the acute hospital setting within the framework of the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) (2001). It focuses in particular on the environmental factors that facilitate or create barriers for people with communication disabilities because environmental factors can be modified so that acute care hospitals can become more accessible communicative environments for all people. The paper describes the particular environmental factors that have been identified in acute hospitals that influence the ability of people with specific types of communication disabilities and their healthcare providers to communicate. It then goes on to describe the common environmental factors that have been identified across people with different types of communication disabilities when they are communicating with their healthcare providers. This paper concludes with suggestions for directions of future research.

Enhancing Health Care Communication Skills

The Communicating Effectively with Health Care Professionals (CE) workshop curriculum is designed for family caregivers to encourage caregiver empowerment, effective health care communication, and advocacy in medical care contexts with the goal of promoting positive health outcomes for care recipients. This mixed-method study employed a cross-sectional quantitative mail survey (N= 51) and semi-structured qualitative telephone interviews (N= 14) to examine the effectiveness of the curriculum in promoting self-reported changes in caregiver attitudes and communication behavior. Respondents reported increased as-sertiveness in medical encounters, feelings of empowerment, and preparation and organization of medical information for their care recipients as a result of workshop participation.

Perception of persons with severe or profound deafness about the communication process during health care

This study describes a qualitative approach with the objective of characterizing the perceptions of people with severe or profound deafness about the communication process in the context of health care services. Study participants were 11 people with severe and/or profound deafness, who were interviewed using Brazilian sign language (LIBRAS). The interactions were videotaped and then transcribed. Care was taken to maintain the grammatical construction which was characteristic in the expression of each person. Three categories emerged from thematic analysis: Understanding, Need for Mediation, Feelings. Deaf persons do not achieve effective communication in health care, during which they experience negative feelings. Hence, the presence of a professional interpreter is needed.

Interprofessional shared learning: a workshop on communication for screening blood donors

AbstractThe importance of effective communication in healthcare is well documented. Teaching and learning about communication now forms part of the education of most healthcare professionals in the United Kingdom. Based on this premise, a workshop was developed that aimed at developing the communication skills of donor carers or those involved in their training and/or management within the National Blood Service (NBS). Donor carers are the public front of the NBS, conducting interviews with donors, taking blood and providing follow‐up care. The 2 day workshop used a range of educational activities to support participants in meeting learning objectives. The workshop was evaluated by pre‐ and post‐tests of knowledge and attitude and by participants’ ratings of the degree to which they met learning objectives. Participants’ levels of propositional knowledge in relation to donor‐centred interviewing remained unchanged after the workshop. However, baseline knowledge was already very high. Ratings of the degree to which participants met learning objectives revealed success in the key areas of the workshop – that is, knowledge of, and the practice of, communication skills. Participants reported that they had benefited from attending the workshop in both personal and professional domains, and some expressed a strong sense of personal achievement. There were no differences in participants’ ratings based on their professional group or function within the NBS. Future workshops could consider reducing the number of participants, incorporating skills assessments and offering follow‐up meeting(s) reflecting the participants’ identified needs.

Effective communication in health care: exploring the skills of the teachers

Following the growing commitment to teach communication skills in health care, a project was designed to identify a group of Health Professionals with a responsibility for teaching communication skills in Health Care. This group would have their communication skills assessed, using positive feedback, and attend workshops to improve both their communication and teaching skills. Four key tutors were recruited to the study and were each asked to identify a further three tutors, in their own geographical area, to form a “cell”. This sample of 16 tutors remained constant throughout the study. Skills were monitored by the assessment of audio-taped interviews, one made prior to the first workshop and two others at agreed intervals. Written feedback was given on the first interview, plus the option of verbal feedback on a skills study day. Written feedback was given on subsequent interviews. Changes in skills were monitored and baseline skills compared to previous skills training. The results show, with two exceptions, that there appears to be a link between baseline skills and previous training in communication skills. For three “cells”, there are gains in overall scores from first to third interview, but for the fourth “cell”, which had high baseline scores, there was only minimal change. The work suggests, that for those who teach Communication in Health Care, training is a pre-requisite. Further work is required in this area.

The picture of health? Message standardization and recall of televised AIDS public service announcements

The results of The Picture of Health demonstrate that differences exist between African Americans and Non Hispanic Whites in recall of verbal and visual themes of televised AIDS public service announcements. These differences are anchored in a complex relationship among emotions, attitudes, and opinions about the place of science and technology in society, and the “how we say it” elements used to create an individual PSA. The data suggest that effective healthcare communication campaigns require a focused thematic strategy, tactically organized to different combinations of “how we say it” elements to communicate effectively with a diverse, active audience. T.N. Walters is Assistant Professor of Journalism, Northeast Louisiana University. Lynne M. Walters, Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, and Susanna Hornig Priest are Associate Professors of Journalism, Texas A & M University.