Health care practitioners have a significant role in updating patient medication. Communication errors are a major contributor to patient injuries. Effective communication is, therefore, crucial in ensuring that healthcare professionals operate efficiently. According to the Joint Commission (2010), it is necessary to improve the communication between healthcare professions and their patients. The Joint Commission has outlined the measures that will ensure accurate communication. On this note, healthcare providers should practice effective communication, because it will help to minimize the risks of injury to their patients.
Healthcare service providers should exercise a joint establishment of meaning with their patients. The joint establishment of meaning will create opportunities for the patients to participate actively in their care, from admission through to discharge. To avoid errors of miscommunication, the healthcare service providers should understand and integrate the information extracted from patients. The patients should also comprehend accurate, timely, complete and unambiguous information from the service providers. The Joint Communication (2010) has, therefore, provided a checklist to improve effective communication throughout patients’ care. The checklist provided by the Joint Commission will ensure that the patients’ rights are protected and that they do not suffer the risks of miscommunication. The joint establishment, where patients can also participate in their healthcare, will reduce the patients’ risks to injury.
Healthcare units should train their staff on effective communication pertaining to patients’ safety. The Joint Commission has provided a roadmap for hospitals that contains the guidelines for effective communication. Therefore, the hospitals should provide their key staff with the reading assignments that the Joint Commission has provided. For instance, it is relevant that the quality, patient safety, and the risk management staff read the content of the monograph the Joint Commission has provided. The content will enable them to incorporate the required practices into their existing processes. The content of the materials furnished by the Joint Commission may be beneficial to healthcare service providers. It enables the hospital service providers to understand how they can address different issues relating to patients throughout their continuous care. Hospitals can introduce the monograph provided by the Commission as a comprehensive orientation program. Training medical service providers on how to address the issues raised by their patients will minimize the cases of miscommunication. Where the healthcare service providers have minimized cases of miscommunication, the training will equip the staff with the relevant knowledge to effective communication hence reducing the patients’ risks to injury.
Medical service providers can practice accurate communication by treating their patients with respect and kindness. According to Kelly (2012), healthcare service providers should communicate with their patients with respect and kindness. They should keep them informed and listen to their opinions. Keeping the patients updated on their health records will create a good relationship. Kelly (2012) further states that treating patients and their families with kindness and respect can reduce the risk of patient injury. Where medical service providers exercise respect, the patients and their families will feel liberated to communicate their health issues to their medical service providers accurately. Accurate communication will minimize patients’ risks to injuries and death.
Furthermore, the communication could be accurate if the hospitals develop a system to collect patient language information. The patient language information is a significant example of ensuring effective communication in the healthcare department. By identifying the patient’s preferred language for discussing their healthcare, it would be important to assign them a health care practitioner who understands the language. For example, there are different languages in the United States of America, and so it is relevant to comprehend the patient’s language first. In some circumstances, different terms could give different meanings depending on the language. Language barriers may lead to errors in communication, which may create threats to patient health. , Language barriers can lead to wrong prescription because a patient may communicate a statement which the medical practitioners may misinterpret. Medical service providers should implement the steps provided by the Joint Commission accordingly. If the steps are well implemented, then the risks of death and injuries on the patients will reduce. Therefore, the healthcare service providers should positively influence the flow of accurate communication to mitigate the risk of patient injury. They can achieve this by adhering to the monograph provided by the Joint Commission on the measures to ensure effective communication (Joint Communication, 2010). As outlined by Kelly (2012), ethical practices by the medical service providers are an essential element to ensure effective communication. Therefore, the healthcare service providers should treat the patients with respect and kindness to enhance good relationship with sick persons. When all these aspects of effective communication are implemented in medical institutions, the risks of injury will reduce significantly.
- Kelly, P. (2012). Legal Aspects of Health Care. In J. Martin, K. Cain, C. Priest & S. Hooks (Eds.), Nursing leadership & management (pp. 544-561). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar, Cengage Learning.
- Joint Commission. (2010). Advancing effective communication, cultural competence, and patient-and family-centered care: A roadmap for hospitals. Joint Commission.