¶ … patient satisfaction with the care provided by nursing staff and physicians, as well as how satisfaction can be improved through better communication among physicians and nurses, and with their patients. It will, in particular, deal with a nursing student's own clinical experience with patients and their perception of healthcare provider-patient communication. In addition, the paper will examine the student's project which considered the strategy of updating white boards in patient rooms regularly for better communication. Ten medical surgical ward patients were interviewed during rounds by a student, who rated patient satisfaction and tried to discover some common theme. While patients expressed satisfaction with how nursing staff delivered care, they felt physicians didn't keep them informed. A number of patients were visited by two or more doctors. However, there was no communication between doctors, leading to issues such as a patient being marked "not ready for surgery" by the cardiologist, owing to a dysfunctional pacemaker, but the medical team giving the patient pre-operation orders. The recommendation put forward by the student was that nursing staff update ward communication boards on a daily basis In this way, doctors can see which teams visited the patient and they can subsequently look for updates in patients' charts. However, this idea was not very effective, as nurses were, at times, overly busy and failed to update the board. Also, despite doctors being well qualified and urged to simply check off while entering a particular room, only half the doctors complied. Patients and their families reported that doctor and nurse compliance was very valuable to them. The aim is encouraging compliance from nurses and physicians, for improving communication and patient satisfaction. Hence, this paper attempts to examine the significance of, and different steps that can be taken for, improving communication.

Background Information

Doctors and nursing staff regularly interact with patients, with each perceiving the other individual in their unique situation, communicating and establishing goals, and agreeing on how to attain those goals. Proper communication forms the keystone of patients' relationships with their nurses and physicians. It entails information sharing as well as provision of psychological/emotional support. Present practice stresses quality care delivery by physicians and nursing professionals. This necessitates assessment of patient preferences...

Proper communication emboldens patients to let their caregivers know of their anxieties. In return, caregivers can provide them emotional support. Supportive communication improves psychological adjustment of patients, thereby improving patient outcomes.
Review of Literature

Importance of Team Satisfaction

Communication within, and between, healthcare teams has an impact on working relationship quality and job satisfaction. Patient safety is also profoundly affected by it (Impact of Communication in Healthcare - Institute for Healthcare Communication):

1. According to evidence from research, proper communication with regard to responsibilities and tasks is linked to enhanced job satisfaction as well as a significant drop in nursing staff turnover, due to the mutual support it facilitates.

1. Yao and Larson's study depicted a direct link between clinician satisfaction levels and their capability of developing rapport and expressing warmth and care with patients.

1. The aspects that lead to improved satisfaction in healthcare teams are: feeling supported interpersonally as well as administratively, appreciated, understood, acknowledged, and paid attention to. Furthermore, team members need to clearly understand what their personal role is (in the team), and enjoy fair compensation and work equity.

Nurse practitioners, licensed vocational nursing staff, registered nurses and other healthcare providers can improve care efficiency and effectiveness by trying to understand the health literacy of their patients. Health literacy may be described as the extent of individuals' capability of obtaining, processing, and understanding basic health-related services and information for engaging in appropriate healthcare decision-making. The core of health literacy deals with explicit communication between patients and healthcare facilities they approach for aid. Individually, this aspect deals with enabling patients to understand their medical problem and its treatment (The Importance of Communication and Education toward Patient Literacy). More…