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Healthcare providers must understand strategies for effective communication with patients. Using these strategies will help establish relationships based on sensitivity to patients' needs and their place in the healthcare journey.
Nurses understand the impact of communication among healthcare providers on patient outcomes and safety. As one of the leading causes of medical errors in health care, ineffective communication contributes to patient harm and even death (Joint Commission International, 2018). Communication errors among providers are also a leading contributor to sentinel events (Guttman et al., 2021). Various best practices have been integrated into everyday communication among healthcare providers to reduce miscommunication and its impact. These best practices include Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation (SBAR) and TeamSTEPPS® (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, n.d.; Institute for Healthcare Improvement, 2017).
While extensive resources are available for communication among healthcare providers, what are best practices to use when communicating with patients? Patients often enter an unfamiliar environment where multiple individuals simultaneously not only ask them personal questions but also provide a lot of information. Patients can be overwhelmed with the amount of information as well as the nature of the questions asked. They will interact with multiple nurses, physicians, and other interprofessional healthcare team members during a 24hour period. As patients may be left to put together the pieces of information, lack of clarity and inaccuracies can result (Joint Commission International, 2018). The lack of clarity impacts patients' ability to follow the treatment plan, ultimately having an adverse effect on their health (University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, 2020). Healthcare providers must understand strategies for effective communication with patients. Using these strategies will help establish relationships based on sensitivity to patients' needs and their place in the healthcare journey. Providers also obtain accurate information about patients while providing education appropriate to their needs. Having effective communication with patients not only increases their understanding of the health situation but also empowers them to be engaged actively in their health care (Guttman et al., 2021).
Strategies for Patient Communication
Providers can use several strategies to tailor communication to specific needs of patients.
Develop a Trusting Relationship
The foundation of the nurse-patient relationship is trust. Trust involves engaging and...