Improving Patient Satisfaction Through Better Communication

Introduction

This paper examines patient satisfaction with the care provided by nursing staff and physicians, as well as how satisfaction can be improved through better communication among physicians, nurses, and their patients. It deals, in particular, with a nursing student's own clinical experience with patients and their perception of healthcare provider-patient communication. In addition, the paper examines the student's project, which considered the strategy of updating whiteboards in patient rooms regularly as a tool for better communication.

Ten medical-surgical ward patients were interviewed during rounds by a student, who rated patient satisfaction and tried to discover common themes. While patients expressed satisfaction with how nursing staff delivered care, they felt physicians did not keep them adequately informed. A number of patients were visited by two or more doctors; however, there was no communication between those doctors. This led to problems such as a patient being marked "not ready for surgery" by the cardiologist owing to a dysfunctional pacemaker, while the medical team simultaneously gave the patient pre-operation orders.

The recommendation put forward by the student was that nursing staff update ward communication boards on a daily basis, so that doctors can see which teams have visited the patient and subsequently look for updates in patients' charts. However, this approach proved only partially effective: nurses were at times overly busy and failed to update the board, and only half the doctors complied with the simple step of checking off upon entering a room. Patients and their families reported that doctor and nurse compliance was very important to them. The broader aim is to encourage compliance from both nurses and physicians in order to improve communication and patient satisfaction. This paper therefore examines the significance of communication in healthcare and the steps that can be taken to improve it.

Background Information

Doctors and nursing staff regularly interact with patients, with each party perceiving the other 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 not only information sharing but also the provision of psychological and emotional support. Present practice stresses quality care delivery by physicians and nursing professionals. This necessitates assessment of patient preferences and requirements by means of effective communication, and the provision of relevant care that satisfies those requirements. Proper communication also emboldens patients to let their caregivers know of their anxieties, allowing caregivers to provide emotional support in return. Supportive communication improves patients' psychological adjustment, thereby improving patient outcomes overall.

Review of Literature

Importance of Team Satisfaction

Communication within and between healthcare teams has an impact on working relationship quality and job satisfaction, and patient safety is also profoundly affected by it. Evidence from research indicates that proper communication regarding 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. 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. The aspects that lead to improved satisfaction in healthcare teams include feeling supported interpersonally as well as administratively, feeling appreciated, understood, acknowledged, and heard. Furthermore, team members need to clearly understand their personal role within the team and enjoy fair compensation and equitable workloads.

Nurse practitioners, licensed vocational nurses, registered nurses, and other healthcare providers can improve care efficiency and effectiveness by seeking to understand the health literacy of their patients. Health literacy may be described as the degree to which individuals are capable of obtaining, processing, and understanding basic health-related services and information in order to engage in appropriate healthcare decision-making. At its core, health literacy deals with explicit communication between patients and the healthcare facilities they approach for aid — specifically, enabling patients to understand their medical problem and its treatment.

More than ninety million adults in the United States are unable to read complicated text or find it hard to understand complex instructions. In other words, the healthcare literacy of 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 substantial and relatively consistent healthcare educational content, many guidebooks and pamphlets are too sophisticated for the average or poorly educated patient to understand. Inadequately literate patients may be unable to derive the benefits of such efforts on the healthcare system's part, which explains the failure experienced by certain patient education initiatives. As per the National Adult Literacy Survey, 47–53% of adult American citizens have deficient reading skills. Registered nurses must, first, display a sound grasp of the link between chronic illness-related knowledge and literacy. Understanding the role of functional health literacy in disease management, together with patient awareness and education, should contribute to efforts at improving patients' disease-related knowledge and treatment compliance.

Conclusion

Effective communication by nurses and physicians with patients is essential and has numerous impacts on diverse health outcome elements. These impacts include improved health outcomes, increased clinician and patient satisfaction, reduced malpractice risk, and greater patient adherence to treatment regimens. A founding principle of Canada's College of Family Practice states that the "patient-physician relationship is fundamental to the family physician role" (Wong & Lee, 2006). Family physicians worldwide should therefore take the initiative to advocate for enhancing patient-doctor relationships. Additional efforts toward improving communication and patient-clinician ties can help lower the number of complaints, decrease unnecessary investigations, and increase compliance. Encouraging consistent, structured communication practices — such as daily whiteboard updates and clear team check-in protocols — represents a practical first step toward these goals.

References

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Wong, S., & Lee, A. (2006). Communication skills and doctor-patient relationship. Medical Bulletin, 11(3). Retrieved from