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Importance of effective health communication
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Language barriers have been one of the identified causes of many health problems, including timely and appropriate care, exacerbating existing conditions, and precipitating new ones. In addition to culturally appropriate education, interpreting is one of the approaches commonly used to help bridge the language gap for patients and practitioners. Interpreters are bilingual individuals that provide simultaneous interpretation between patients and medical care providers who do not share a common language (Finke, Light, & Kitko, 2008). This finding suggests that a good relationship is essential for high-quality patient care. (Finke et al., 2008) use qualitative evidence from interviews with medical interpreters, and argue that an interdisciplinary team is oriented in just one direction to care for patients, and bring them to their ultimate level of functioning. Certainly, all of the observations provided by this journal reaffirmed how understanding the basic principles of communication should be a paramount skill of any nurse. However, many barriers can disrupt therapeutic communication, and comprehensive assessment is necessary in order to determine the culture, religion, education background, and socioeconomic status of the patient (Finke et al., 2008) Patient centered communication empower nurses with the necessary skills to identify what patients are experiencing and place them in a better position to be empathetic.
Meanwhile, creating a better health care experience for the patient and a more gratifying and meaningful career for the nurse (Finke et al., 2008). It is also more likely to effectively encourage patients to be active partners in planning and managing their own care. It is significant for medical care provider...
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LaValley, D (2008) Physician- Nurse Collaboration and patient safety. Crico RMF Vol. 26/No. 2
Lee Flicek Cassandra (2012) Communication: A Dynamic Between Nurses and Physicians. Vol. 21/No. 6
McCaffrey, R.G., Hayes, R., Stuart, W., Cassell, A., Farrell, C. & Miller-Reyes C. 2010. A Program to Improve Communication and Collaboration Between Nurses and Medical Residents. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing · Vol 41, No 4. Retrieve from: http://content2.learntoday.info/
Patak, L., Wilson-Stronks, A., Costello, J., Keleinpell, R. M., Henneman, E. A., Pearson, C. & Happ, M. B. (2009). Improving Patient-Provider Communication. A Call to Action. Volume 39, Number 9, pp 372-376.
Williams, M. V., Davis, T., Parker, R. M., & Weiss, B. D. (2002). The role of health literacy in patient-physician communication. FAMILY MEDICINE-KANSAS CITY-, 34(5), 383-389.
...ulture is changing, Hmong are not all the same, importance of family, privacy issues, mental health issues, and small talk is important (Barrett et al., 1998, 181-182) . Overall, Barrett and others concluded that in order to improve interaction between patient and doctor all they have to do is follow these easy steps. First, is to be kind and have a positive attitude towards the patient and interpreter. Second, learn about each other’s cultures prior to meeting, to better understand each other. Third, better explain diagnosis and treatment options to patients. Fourth, improve translation providers need to get better interpreters who could concisely explain the consultation. Fifth, involve the family to make more thorough decisions. Sixth, respect patient’s decisions and there are still other alternatives to improve interaction (Barrett et al., 1998, 182-183).
The goal of this lesson is to explore how we can improve communication to eliminate language barriers between healthcare providers and patients in our organization and to establish culturally and linguistically appropriate goals, that provide safe, equal, and quality care to all our clients regardless of race, ethnic, or socioeconomic status. At the end of this lesson we should be
There is a need for a diverse workforce and appropriate interpreters for providing the best patient care. It is often seen that bilingual interpreters are hired by healthcare organizations without much skills. This can lead to medical errors putting patient safety at risk. Therefore, hiring appropriate interpreters with assessment of their skills is critical in healthcare organization. Interpreters can help healthcare organizations by:
Communication encompasses a wide range of processes such as the exchange of information, listening, posing of questions (Fleischer et al., 2009) or use of body language. In a healthcare environment where there are constant interactions among nurses, doctors, patients and other health professionals, professional and effective communication is important in ensuring high quality healthcare standards and meeting the individual needs of patients.
Effective communication prevents medical errors, improve patient- therapist relationship, as well as prevents disappointments and friction. It is essential to find out the level of health literacy of an individual, as well as the proficiency in English. According to Divi, Koss, Schmaltz & Loeb (2007), there is a risk of patient 's safety due to the language barrier. Based on the study of Divi et al. (2007), among 832 English speaking patients and 251 patients with limited English fluency, 49% of the patients of their study have limited English fluency that associated with physical harm with a rate of 29.5% patients that are fluent in English are physically injured. Partially injured and death occurs with patients with constrained English proficiency (52.4%), as compared to patients with English fluency (35.9%) (Divi et al., 2007). Divi et al. (2007) suggested providing access to qualified language interpreters for patients with limited English proficiency to prevent more harm. Effective communicating is not only important to patients with limited, or inadequate English proficiency but also to individuals with impaired vision, hearing, and people that unable to speak.It is also important about the patient 's privacy. Another knowledge from the book mentioned above is effective communication regardless of individuals culture.
Professional collaboration is an important aspect regarding patient safety in the medical field. This is a time when different kinds off professionals collaborate with one another about a patient’s health status and condition. “Specifically, Interprofessionality is a process by which professionals reflect on and develop ways of practicing that provides an integrated and cohesive answer to the needs of the client/family/population…(involving) continuous interaction and knowledge sharing between professionals” (Black, 2014). The collaboration of different professionals allow for a better decision to be made towards the patient’s health outcomes.
Professional providers of language in medicine or medical interpreters are often portrayed as invisible language facilitators (Angelelli 7). This means that their role is to convey the meaning into the other language between parties in the interaction which is accomplished through a conduit role or message converter role. The incremental intervention model of interpreting lets interpreters use a variety of roles including cultural broker and advocate role. Advocacy is a role that an interpreter takes that moves from interpreting the communication between speakers to acting on behalf of one of the speakers based on the interpreter’s understanding of what the speaker’s intended outcome is (NCIHC). It is challenging for medical interpreters to judge when to switch from their role as message converters to become patient advocates, and speak out in their own voice on behalf of a patient maintaining, at all times, high ethical and professional standards. When interpreters step in the role of patient advocate they become visible in the interaction going beyond the conduit role and becoming co-participants in the triad. What is the ethical role of the medical interpreter as an advocate for the Latino patient?; when is it appropriate to use advocacy?; how to make the decision?; what are the consequences of inappropriate use of advocacy role?; what are the boundaries?
The top priority of the medical interpreters is removing language barrier between the medical practitioners and the patients and helping the patients to treat properly. Indeed, impartiality can be challenged in medical setting. However, some articles are pointed out that the interpreter who is related to the patient is not always harmful to the patients and the medical practitioners. Therefore, when the medical interpreters take an assignment, they should consider what the best is for the patients and the medical practitioners.
The introduction paragraph gives information on communication and the impact that it has on patient-nurse relationships. It gives the reader an understanding of what is involved in true communication and how that it is a fundamental part of nursing and skills all nurses need. It leads those interested in delivering quality nursing to read on. Showing us the significance that communication makes in the
To start implementing this framework, one need to understand and acknowledge that every patient is not only different from one another, but a unique individual. Assumptions and stereotypes about a specific cultural group must be avoided, along with personal biases (Murphy, 2011). Furthermore, actively listening and fully engaging patients’ can improve nurse-patient communication and enhance patient outcome.
“Communication is the heart of nursing… your ability to use your growing knowledge and yourself as an instrument of care and caring and compassion” (Koerner, 2010, as cited in Balzer-Riley, 2012, p. 2). The knowledge base which Koerner is referring to includes important concepts such as communication, assertiveness, responsibility and caring (Balzer-Riley, 2012). Furthermore, communication is complex. It includes communication with patients, patient families, doctors, co-workers, nurse managers and many others. Due to those concepts and the variety of people involved, barriers and issues are present. Knowing how to communicate efficiently can be difficult.
Pashley, H.(2012). Overcoming barriers when caring for patients with limited english proficiency. Association of Operating Room Nurses.AORN Journal, 96(3), C10-C11. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0001-2092(12)00833-2
Therapeutic communication is an important skill for a nurse to utilize when it comes to relationships between the patient and nurse. In Regina’s case, integration of empathetic and compassionate communication skills in combinat...
According to Boykin “Caring is the foundation of nursing” (Boykin et al, 2011), and it is the nurses’ responsibility to understand what it means to be caring toward patients, which can be achieved through having professional communication skills. Not only does not being able to communicate affect the patient, but also it affects how the nurse is able to do his or her job to the best they can. Smith and Pressman say that the Institute of Medicine has released reports, which stress, “good communication is critical to ensuring safe and reliable nursing” (Smith & Pressman, 2010). Bad communication skills have the potential to be more dangerous to the patient and can in tern make a life-threateni...
This causes problems about the diagnosis as well as how nurses may tell patients about issues with their care. A way a nurse can overcome this is by having an interpreter when they know that a patient doesn’t know English, but this is not always the case for most nurses as there are not a lot of interpreters around. In health practice language isn’t always to do with culture but it can be the way a nurse or doctor speaks to the patients so they may adopt certain types of jargon and the patients may feel intimidated. Madeleine Leininger, who is the founder of transcultural nursing, says that providing competent care across all cultures and to be customized to fit patient’s different beliefs and traditions and different languages that a patient may speak. Divi et al (2007) claims that language barriers increase the risk of patient care and safety as they will find it difficult to understand what is going on with their care, so it is important for patients to have access to language services such as an