Effective communication in nursing

Need to reply with 1 paragraph with a minimum of 100 words. Include reference with citation minimum 1.

2. Thinking about your experiences as a student nurse, have you observed effective communication improve patient care outcomes? Have you observed the impact of poor communication on patient outcomes?

Communication in nursing is an essential factor in the healthcare setting that facilitates patient care enhancement and improves outcomes. Efficient communication has significantly improved patient outcomes and care. There are various components of effective communication in the healthcare fraternity (Masters, 2020). The components of effective communication include healthcare literacy and cultural competency. If the communication lacks the components, it is rendered ineffective. Effective communication in healthcare determines the type of patient care and ensures the patient’s healthcare outcomes. Communication in nursing plays a crucial role in the healthcare process. Healthcare facilities with efficient and strong communication policies do enrich the patient’s health. However, poor communication has facilitated many mortalities within the healthcare sector in the past five years.

Healthcare practitioners need to provide the best protection to patients through effective communication within the healthcare setting. If healthcare communication is poor, there is a high likelihood of negatively impacting patient outcomes, care quality, and patient safety (Foronda, MacWilliams & McArthur, 2016). Nurses are closely associated with patients for the provision of care. Therefore, they are responsible for communicating the patient’s information to the relevant staff responsible for the patient’s care. It is vital for ensuring patient outcomes and safety through observing the strategies of effective communication in nursing.

Poor communication in nursing can occur for various reasons that are intended or unintended. The patient requirements can arise unexpectedly, which can facilitate changing the patient’s condition fast. The emergent and unpredictable patient care occurrence can lead to unplanned communication among the healthcare providers, which facilitates poor communication. Sharing too much information at a single time between nurses can contribute to poor communication. It creates a stressful circumstance for the nurses to deal with too much information that is associated with the patient. The information includes patient history, treatment plans, vital signs, and any other factor contributing to the patient’s health. Therefore, a healthcare organization should ensure various interventions are undertaken and efficient communication is met among the healthcare givers. The nurse leaders should ensure and promote a clinical culture that aims at safety and patient care. The leaders should support open communication by using appropriate communication tools.

References

1. Foronda, C., MacWilliams, B., & McArthur, E. (2016). Interprofessional communication in healthcare: An integrative review. Nurse education in practice, 19(0), 36-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2016.04.005
2. Masters, K. (2020). Role development in professional nursing practice (5th ed.). Burlington, Massachusetts: Jones; Bartlett Learning.

1. Thinking about your experiences as a student nurse, have you observed effective communication improve patient care outcomes? Have you observed the impact of poor communication on patient outcomes?

As a student nurse I have witnessed good patient care outcomes as a result of effective communication. Effective communication makes the flow of information between the patient and the nurse and other medical personnel. The patient is made aware of all the proceedings of their treatments and medical issues. The views of the patients are collected with due diligence and worked on (Greenhalgh et al., 2018). With effective information flow, the entire process of patient care and patient treatment is made patient-centered which in turn has been found to influence the patient care outcome positively as the patients will not feel left out of the process and that their views and feelings matter too.

Effective communication also ensures increase employee morale in the health care facilities, increased effectiveness of interventions, improved safety of the patients and increased patient and family satisfaction. Through increased morale of the employees, their performance is also improved (Blazin et al., 2018). When patients feel satisfied, the entire process of treatment becomes a success as the satisfaction has a moral and psychological effect to the patient. They feel that this is the best hospital, and these medical personnel are the best. The healing and recovery process begins with the mental state of the patient.

I have also witnessed the effects of poor communication towards the patient care outcomes. For instance, there is patient dissatisfaction and inefficient use of available resources. Poor communication jeopardizes the preference of the patient. The main factor that influences the patient care outcome is the satisfaction of the patient. Whenever patients feel dissatisfied, their recovery and healing are affected as they tend to have a negative feeling towards everything and everybody in that particular health care facility. Therefore, patient satisfaction is key and as such communication between the patient and the medical personnel should be made effective and tailored to meet the needs of the patient.

References

Blazin, L. J., Cecchini, C., Habashy, C., Kaye, E. C., & Baker, J. N. (2018). Communicating effectively in pediatric cancer care: translating evidence into practice. Children, 5(3), 40.

Greenhalgh, J., Gooding, K., Gibbons, E., Dalkin, S., Wright, J., Valderas, J., & Black, N. (2018). How do patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) support clinician-patient communication and patient care? A realist synthesis. Journal of patient-reported outcomes, 2(1), 1-28.