Ineffective Communication Within a Specific

¶ … ineffective communication within a specific health care organization in order to identify barriers and challenges that contributed to the incident. This essay will describe an incident where a mistake was made due to faulty communication practices.

Recently I accompanied my friend to the emergency room at the local hospital after he had accidently cut most of his thumb off while preparing a salad for dinner. After registering with the nurse at the ER we were told to wait in a screening room until the doctor could examine my friend. My friend was bleeding pretty bad and was quite scared even though this injury was not life threatening and would most likely heal without any problem.

As time went by waiting we soon began to realize that some sort of miscommunication had occurred because it had been nearly one hour and no doctor had come to visit. The room itself was out of the main hallway and was hidden out of sight. At this time I had gone back to the front desk and a new nurse was there as a new shift had begun. I had asked her when my friend would receive some treatment and this nurse did not know what I was talking about. After several minutes of discussion we both realized that the nurse who had just got off shift did not communicate to her our situation.

While this incident is minor, it demonstrates the importance of communication. While me friend only had cut off part of his thumb, no one in the ER knew what was going on after the shift change showing that a proper hand off of information did not take place.

According the text the communication process is a loop where information is propelled in motion by the use of written, nonverbal and verbal means. In this case the important information was never even brought up during the shift change and the situation could have been worse if my friend was dying or in need of more immediate care.

It appears that the shift changing operating procedures overlooked us waiting in the room demonstrating how it failed at all levels. An effective change would have seen the medical personnel in the ER know about each thing that is going on. This information should have been written down and verbally conveyed to the new shift that took over, but did not.