Effective communication at health care
Communication comprises of the conversation as well as the procedure that all people take part in. Whether it is via a spoken word, non-verbal means, or silence, messages are continually exchanged from one person or group to the other. All manners have a message as well. Communication is a means that people cannot evade being involved with. In health practice, communication is vital, and excellent conversation skills are paramount in the growth and development of the General practitioner-patient relationship.
There are several ways of establishing a rapport with a client, and these comprise:
- Maintain an eye contact
The counselor should maintain eye contact with the patients, keeping eye contact with the patient communicates care as well as compassion. It may as well depict empathy as well as interest in the situation of the patient. Eye contact, together with human touch, links the counselor to the patient as well as understanding the communication.
- Open communication
One research described excellent communication as a significant element for enhancing patient outcomes. Understanding the contact needs of your patient and their state of mind can help to establish rapport. One way to do this is to remind your patient of new instructions or changes in their condition. One is to allow the patient to share their thoughts with you. Open communication is one of the essential communication skills required for success for nurses.
- Keep it personalized
Having a patient could be frustrating. As a counselor should take the time to understand your patients and help ease their stay. Tell about family and friends, interests, and other significant aspects of their lives. This conveys one’s willingness to see the patient as a human and not just as a patient. It is a simple way of learning how to develop a rapport with your clients (Wang et al., 2018).
- Showing empathy
Empathy is the capability to comprehend the situation of the patient, feelings as well as perspectives. It gives the chancellor or any other person to deliver more care. The empathetic counselor converse as well as performs on their comprehension of the patient.
For effective communication, the most critical communication strategies are listening; communication does not only involve talking. There is no way one can have an interactive conversation without listening the other party’s concerns and put them on boards. One has to make sure that they set aside time for the other people to talk about their interests and should not be interrupted (Foronda et al., 2016).
Interrogation is another strategy for effective communication, it gives a chance to the counselor to collect more information as well open, and closed queries may be used too. Closed queries typically need a no, or yes answer is applied to obtain the required messages, while open queries give the patient a chance just like Benny, to play an active role and discuss with GP and agree to the options linked to his care as set out in the standard of healthcare in Australia. Investigative questions may be applied to explore the problem of the patients more, allowing the GP to treat the patient as a person as well as develop a care plan exact to their requirement (Wang et al., 2018).
The non-verbal conversation is as well a crucial factor in communication, and it comprises the exchange of messages without involving words. This kind of communication is connected to emotional states as well as attitudes and the conveyed messages via body signals. Body languages are said to have seven elements, which comprises of body space, gestures, proximity, gaze, facial expression, posture, dress as well touch (Shahid and Thomas, 2018). Every element may impose the spoken word as well add sense to the information; it is not about what one says or how they say it, but it as well relates to what the body of a person is doing too while speaking (Foronda et al.,2016). Patients always read cues from the GP, such as non-verbal outlooks that may depict interest or not interested. Attention together with attentiveness to the sick person may be attained via sitting squarely, opening posture, leaning toward the patient, Eye contact, and Relaxing denoted by SOLER (Shitu et al.,2018).
On the other hand, several things contribute to stopping effective communication. People operating with social care as well as health understand the barriers to overcome them. Effective communication is essential in the health context. If the conversation is not productive in the health environment, then it would be hard for the user of the service to involve the discussion concerning the care or future planning. In the same manner, it would be hard for the provider of the service to assist the service user when they do not comprehend whatever the patient is trying to pass. Some of the barriers at health centers that patient and counselor were facing are that Benny was stressed because of family issues, health issues since he started taking alcohol. In these environmental problems, he could face fear to tell the General practitioner truth since his mother was around. Other barriers that may be present at health centers are jargon, emotional difficulties, misinterpretation, aggression, and acronyms.
Some of the barriers to effective communication are physical barriers; the physical environment may create a big difference in excellent communication. Some of the physical environments that might affect excellent communication include insufficient lighting, the size of the room, noises around, as well as lack of privacy, may prevent effective communication in the healthcare environment. The respective people such as nurses, doctors, councilors and General practitioner (Shahid and Thomas,2018).
A distractive surrounding does not assist the sick person’s stress, although small actions may make the change when enhancing the environment. For instance, a busy disrupting surrounding may increase the stress of the patient. If on a specific day, the noise rises, a doctor may explain to the patient. Shutting doors, opening blinds, as well as keeping the noise outside are some of the practices to make the patient comfort, thus a safe and an environment that is comfortable enhances effective communication.
For psychological barriers, it is not important for one to start a communication with obesity, sexuality as well as other diseases. Sensitive topics create anxiety as well as stress that block effective communication between patients with the service provider. The solution to this is that the doctors, nurses, and counselors are supposed to develop a bedside manner. The manner comprises of empathy, dedication as well as sensitivity. It as well fosters effective communication and creates trust as well as confidence (Baraldi and Gavioli, 2020).
In the case of Benny and the councilor, CRISCO Provider No. 00103d, the ethical consideration present comprises: Listening; the councilor maintains silence to listen to Benny without interrupting his explanation. Another ethical consideration is Non-judgmental, where the councilor does not engage in any manner of judging Benny for any instance. The patient is speaking from his own experience as well as perspective, expressing his thoughts, requirements together with feelings. The counselor ensures that the patient has enough time to speak, which all members have equal time for expression. The counselor talks less to listen more while the patient talks more (Shitu et al.,2018).
Social workers, nurses, and doctors are some of the health service professionals Benny might talk about. A nurse who has excellent communication skills is an individual who listens to the patient. Another ethical communication in which a nurse, doctor, and co-worker should have comprises privacy, the duty of care, ethical decision making, and interest, discrimination and confidentiality, and disclosure. However, some of the challenges which may arise from interpersonal communication are the use of jargon, different in viewpoint and outlook, emotional barriers as well as taboos, lack of attention, distraction and interest as well as physical disabilities, for instance, challenge with hearing or speech difficulties (Wang et al.,2018).
In conclusion, communications in healthcare is used to recognize the relationship between the patient and the physicians, and these are important to get to know the patient well, trust, and to receive the best services. Poor communication usually causes big mistakes like an improper diagnosis of other sick, wrong prescriptions, and administering illegal treatments. Communication is regarded as the heart of these goals and the patients is advised to get involved in their care. Therefore, when chatting with the patient, the professional should consider reflecting b on what they think the consultation took place and how it could be enhanced. Determine if you apply jargon, which the patient may not appreciate. And find out if the patient understood whatever was said.
References
Baraldi, C., & Gavioli, L. (2020). Effective Communication and Knowledge Distribution in Healthcare Interaction with Migrants. Health Communication, 1-9.
Foronda, C., MacWilliams, B., & McArthur, E. (2016). Interprofessional communication in healthcare: An integrative review. Nurse education in practice, 19, 36-40.
Shahid, S., & Thomas, S. (2018). The situation, background, assessment, recommendation (SBAR) communication tool for handoff in health care–a narrative review. Safety in Health, 4(1), 7.
Shitu, Z., Hassan, I., Aung, M. M. T., Kamaruzaman, T. H. T., & Musa, R. M. (2018). Avoiding medication errors through effective communication in a healthcare environment. Malaysian Journal of Movement, Health & Exercise, 7(1).
Wang, Y. Y., Wan, Q. Q., Lin, F., Zhou, W. J., & Shang, S. M. (2018). Interventions to improve communication between nurses and physicians in the intensive care unit: An integrative literature review. International journal of nursing sciences, 5(1), 81-88.