Question

Make a worksheet that describes the following:

Communication techniques that can be used to promote safety within the healthcare facility.

How communication can assist in providing optimal patient care.

Answer 1

Clear communication was imperative in health care environment. It is essentially the activity of relaying information, expressing emotions,and building relationships.

The SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendations) communication technique provides an organized logical sequence and improved communication process to ensure patient safety. SBAR can be applied to almost all forms of communication between healthcare providers and thus provides a standard framework to transfer information. It helps students to organize their thoughts prior to calling a physician, during handoff to another healthcare provider and when transferring patients to organizations or levels of care.

It has been utilized in Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) collaboratives and has been endorsed by the American College of Healthcare Executives and the American Organization of Nurse Executives. One Important aspect of SBAR is it its inherent recognition of nurses and other healthcare providers expertise so that they are encouraged to assertively make recommendations to physicians, thus facilitating nonhierarchical structure. In a recent study of nursing home transfers from acute care settings to skilled nursing facilities (SNF), SBAR implementaion helped avert breakdowns in communication that had previously resulted in patients arriving with incomplete information and the need for important medicatons that were not available.

The Joint Commission (2012) has added standardized communication to the patient safety goals.

SITUATION: What is the situation? Why are you calling the physician? What is happening at the present time? What is the acute change? Explain in the fewest words, exactly what the situation is.

BACKGROUND: What is the background information? What are the vital signs and pertinent history? Explain hoe the situation came to be? What were the circumstances leading upto the situation?

ASSESSMENT: What is your assessment of the problem? What do you think the problem is?

RECOMMENDATION: What should we do to correct the problem? What action or response do you propose?

Effective communication has following benefits which helps to achieve optimal patient care:

1. Explaining diagnosis and treatment.
2. Conveying the information to family.
3. Communicating bad news.
4. Calming down upset patients and family members.
5. Obtaining consent for various procedures.
6. Explaining medications,diet and lifestyle modifications