Communication is the transfer of information, news, ideas, thoughts, situations, feelings, or culture from one source (person, persons, or organization) to another person or group of people through a medium (written, oral, visual, or body language).

Communication between healthcare professionals is another important element that directly affects and sometimes complements the patient care process. For hospitals and healthcare institutions, ensuring that patients receive appropriate care requires more than just implementing procedures and making diagnoses. Communication is an important element at every stage of the healthcare process.

Effective communication is communication that is timely, accurate, precise, complete, free of ambiguity, and understood by the receiver, which reduces errors and results in an improvement in patient care. Communication is important as it is a direct cause of medical errors that frequently occur in the delivery of health services.

When the root causes of 3548 Sentinel Incidents in all categories between 1995 and 2005 are analyzed by The Joint Commission, it is seen that communication ranks first.

Factors Affecting Communication

• The complexity of health services,
• Hierarchy (between physician-nurse, nurse-staff),
• Language differences
• Illegible orders/orders written without clear explanation
• Incomplete information about patients
• Intense and stressful working environments
• Failure to establish a standardized method for reporting daily and momentary changes in the patient's condition and treatment plans
• Noise

Although communication can be electronic, verbal, or written, the most error-prone communication results from verbal directives/orders and verbal receipt of laboratory results. In order to prevent these errors, there is a need for a system for receiving verbal or telephone instructions or for reporting critical test results;

It is important to have a process/procedure and a policy in place to establish this requirement and to verify the test result or directive completed by the person receiving the information by reading it back.

Where is Communication Applied in Hospitals?

IN EVERY FIELD

There are Patient Safety Goals established by the World Health Organization and Service Quality Standards prepared by the Ministry of Health in our country in order to prevent medical errors caused by communication.