Nursing Staff and Communication

¶ … 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 and requirements by means of proper communication and provision of relevant care for satisfying those requirements (Effective communication between registered nurses and adult oncology patients in inpatient settings). 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 than ninety million adults in the U.S. are unable to read complicated text or find it hard to understand complex instructions. In other words, the healthcare literacy of more than ninety million adults in the U.S. (nearly 50% of the nation's adult population) is limited. Patient education is heavily reliant on written content regarding medical management, self-care guidelines, and disease processes.

In spite of the presence of substantial and relatively consistent healthcare educational content, a number of guidebooks and pamphlets are overly sophisticated for the average or poorly educated patient to understand (The Importance of Communication and Education toward Patient Literacy). Inadequately literate patients today might be unable to derive the benefits of such efforts on the healthcare structure's part. This explains the failure experienced by certain patient education initiatives. This issue is probably more widespread than several healthcare practitioners realize.

As per the National Adult Literacy Survey, 47-53% of adult American citizens have deficient reading skills. Registered nurses must, firstly, display a sound grasp of the link between chronic ailment-related knowledge and literacy. Comprehending functional health literacy's role in management of disease, together with patient awareness and education ought to contribute to efforts at improving patients' disease-related knowledge and treatment compliance.

Discussion Evidence from research suggests that strong positive ties exist between communication skills of healthcare unit members and the capacity of a patient to adhere to medical recommendations, assume preventive behaviors, and self-manage their chronic disease. Research proves that a healthcare provider's ability of explaining, listening and empathizing can profoundly impact functional and biological health outcomes, in addition to care experience and patient satisfaction. Moreover, communication between healthcare unit staff impacts working relationship quality, patient safety (profoundly), and job satisfaction.

Healthcare unit members carry out innumerable patient interactions in the course of their career in the medical field (Impact of Communication in Healthcare - Institute for Healthcare Communication). The IOM (Institute of Medicine) Report on Health Professions and Training's call to act highlights the value of improving communication skills of healthcare unit members (including clinicians) via training. Akin to other procedures in the healthcare domain, communication skills may be acquired and honed. Communication skills enhancement necessitates practice and commitment.

In view of the vast pool of evidence that links ineffective patient-clinician communication and increased risk of malpractice, clinician and patient dissatisfaction, non-compliance, and poor health outcomes, it is absolutely essential to address deficits in communication skills. For instance, the nursing student (mentioned in previous sections) embarked on a project involving regular updating of whiteboards in wards for improved communication. This strategy displays immense potential advantages when it comes to improving healthcare provider-patient communication.

White boards form the key to conveying important patient-related information; here, hospital staff can be sagacious and include language preferences, so that doctors or nurses know, as soon as they enter a room, the language their patient is familiar with (Improving Patient-Staff Communication Through White Boards - Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). Furthermore, patients can add.