Part 1: Discuss the importance of effective communication within health and social care.
Good communication as an interactive process entails communicating concepts, perspectives, opinions, populations and facts lucidly and unambiguously (Afriyie 2020). Such a specific way of communication is crucial for patient security and care outcomes in the healthcare sector (Ahrens and Elias, 2023). It also involves empathetic listening from the client to a counsellor and vice versa. This holistic approach promotes harmonious interaction among all entities or communities involved. The importance of effective communication in health care delivery can not be understated because, apart from the transfer of information, it is also critical for establishing trust and confidence that health systems are providing quality, evidence-based, patient-centred care. Hence, the connection between these elements is essential to determine a communication strategy that helps create coherence in a healthcare setting.
A direct impact on patient safety is among the specifics of effective communication in medicine. Therefore, failures in communication among the healthcare team or between medical practitioners and patients may lead to diagnosis misjudgements, treatment mistakes, and prescription errors (Hannawa et al., 2021). Different research studies point out appropriate communication and its link with the decrement in adverse incidents or medical errors. Health professionals create a safer setting by using good communication of information knowledge.
However, despite the importance of effective communication in healthcare, several barriers remain, including language variations, culture mismatching, and technical terminology. Communication failure is furthered by tight scheduling and abnormally high workloads (Thapa et al., 2022). Working through these barriers requires the healthcare provider to undergo specialized training to change attitudes and approaches to improve communication skills, particularly cultural competence. To manoeuvre through these challenges, medical practitioners often use various communication tools such as SBAR (Franko et al., 2020). Successfully overcoming these barriers is critical in ensuring optimum communication, from which the best patient outcomes arise.
Healthcare institutions have readily embraced the SBAR tool, which has introduced a structured pattern of delivering relevant information in patient handovers or consultations. However, as clearly understood from exploratory research, such as articles on research and nursing text, the effectiveness of using the SBAR tool has been evident since this allows for maintaining high efficiency in communication while reducing events (Shahid et al., 2020). It has a systematic character that ensures the accuracy of transmission. Only those pieces of information required are transmitted, thus formalizing the communication structure.
Part 2: Discuss the nurse’s role in supporting person-centred care.
Person-centred care is an approach to patient management that considers each individual’s needs, interests and values (Edgar, Wilson and Moroney, 2020). By taking on the caregiver role, the nurse fosters a person-centred and cooperative spirit of medicine. Supporting a person-centred philosophy should start with the nurse correctly interpreting five underpinning principles. Patient engagement is obtained through individual empowerment, participation in the decision-making process, considering individual preferences and actively listening to the patients (Roche et al., 2020). With the help of nurses, patients can develop a habit of expressing their thoughts and engage actively in care planning to identify person-centred strategies.
Person-centred care is empathy and compassion, which nurses are vital in portraying (Roche et al., 2020). Communication skills intended to provide patients with enough time and space, thus facilitating them the opportunity to express emotional support through holding a hand during distressing moments, also temper empathy in the nurse’s community. This creates confidence and promotes a better form of health care setting. Effective persons-centred communication depends on patients’ needs and adjusting to the individual situation and external factors (Ekman, 2022). This can be accomplished by using simple language that patients may not find difficult to comprehend, listening intently about their concerns, and engaging family members in decision-making. Non-verbal cues, encompassing body language, among others, are vital in person-centred communication since it is through the awareness of nonverbal signs and their use as a means for patients’ articulation.
Another principle that helps patients achieve self-empowerment is how nurses supply their patients with the tools and information required for independent self-management (Duprez et al., 2020). For instance, educating diabetes on using kits or describing medication regimens to patients are physical methods in which nurses promote self-management. Moreover, directing smoking patients to join appropriate groups represents the nurse being a health advocate for making better decisions and taking responsibility. Shared decision-making emphasizes the need to integrate patients and their relatives so that they can be involved in all healthcare-related decisions (Oerlemans, Knippenberg and Olthuis, 2020). Nurses may help actualize this principle by supplying substantial data to patients, providing them with the required knowledge in decision-making. Including relatives in debates and respecting patients’ values and preferences emphasize how nurses acknowledge decision-making partnerships.
Part 3: Discuss the legal principle of informed consent within healthcare.
The ethical concept of informed consent in healthcare stipulates that a patient must possess sufficient knowledge and understanding before making decisions regarding their medical treatment (Szalados, 2021). It is a system that supports patients in making informed, autonomous decisions regarding their healthcare by providing them with all information about the risks and benefits of the proposed intervention along with its alternative operations. The key goals necessary for informed decision-making are showing respect for autonomy and patient rights, transparency in the relations of healthcare providers with patients, and reducing the probability of risks transforming into legal and ethical stresses (Lustgarten et al., 2020). Hence, focusing on such objectives facilitates the development of an organizational climate that promotes patient autonomy while equipping providers and patients with transparent relationships, making their implications and risks as less problematic as possible.
A nurse’s work in getting consent is not as straightforward, but it remains key to ensuring ethical standards persist within healthcare. Nurses are responsible for advocating for clients and informing them on procedures and treatments being considered. Such a responsibility includes following up on and being aware of their ability and limitations by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) code (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2018). In addition, nurses should have highly specialized communication skills to deliver complicated, understandable medical information to the patient so that she can make proper decisions.
There are three levels of consent necessary: written, verbal, and implied, depending on the degree of technical tool involved and how much and unarguably bare they could be as far as risks or complications in combinations. Hence, written consent is usually captured in delicate procedures, including surgery, where a thorough detail on the process is shared with a patient and signed off in the assessment sheet. This procedure also ensures that the patients are fully aware of what they consent to and have done so actively. Verbal consent can be for the patient to verbalize his/her agreement and may fall for less invasive procedures (Ranjan, Kumari and Chakravarty, 2015). Implied consent takes place when patient behaviour or gestures indicate their alleged willingness to agree to undergo a less invasive procedure, such as opening one’s arms to hold blood pressure measurements. Inappropriate consent use can generate major issues during the implementation, so knowing when each type is permissible should be paramount.
Finally, informed consent is necessary to sustain patients’ autonomy and moral medical practice (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2018). Nurses can play vital roles in the process through advocacy, professional code compliance, and information-sharing skills. The subtlety of utilizing written, verbal, or implied consent varies based on the form of medical intervention and aims at giving patients room for engagement in decisions about their treatment.
Part 4: Discuss the importance of clear and accurate record-keeping within health and social care.
Effective record-keeping in health and social care is a systematic approach to recording vital data regarding the treatment, patient history, or interventions related to providing healthcare delivery services (Ajayi, 2020). It refers to ensuring a high degree of continuity in the process, supporting communication among healthcare professionals and being an important basis for informed decisions. Precise and coherent record-keeping plays an important role in the totality of service quality, safety, and efficiency.
The significance of clean and precise documentation in the fields of health as well as social care is highlighted (Ajayi, 2020). Firstly, it is a crucial instrument in ensuring continuity. The accuracy of information allows medical care providers to document the patient’s treatment course and responses, providing transparency in movements between various healthcare facilities or practitioners (Mallawarachchi̇ and Mallawarachchi, 2020).
Moreover, there is a crucial element of precise and detailed record management for medical decision-making. The detailed and recent progress that includes trends is used by professionals in the filing profession to estimate patient functioning when noting patterns for informed care decisions. Such detailed record maintenance not only helps to evaluate the intervention’s efficacy but also provides immediate detection of problems. Inadequate records significantly impede such a capability that would enable individuals to make informed decisions that favour patient attention (Jacob, 2020). In conclusion, precise and comprehensive records remain essential for making intellectual and clinical decisions and providing high-quality patient care.
Having considerable importance, however, there are certain limitations to effective record-keeping in healthcare establishments. It may result in understaffing, time scarcity and heavy workload, resulting in poor or incomplete documentation (del Mar Fariña and O’Neill, 2022). However, distractions and unexpected situations can also contribute to difficulty logging information accurately. Nevertheless, technical errors may sometimes lead to data loss or figures turning out not exactly right when too much reliance is placed on technology (Al-Worafi, 2020). Lack of support, inadequate training and language barriers may impede the healthcare professionals’ capacity to record patient information for a proper representation.
Legal and ethical issues become a focus of the Nursing Midwifery Code regarding accurate retention. As stated by the NMC, healthcare practitioners need to have clinical governance records that are truthful and up-to-date, in which required details of notes should be documented as they can easily become illegible or lost (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2018). Ultimately, the highlighted code states that records should always be held safe and confidential, in line with the requirements expected of any effective legal and ethical healthcare practice.
Reference list
Afriyie, D. (2020). Effective Communication between Nurses and Patients: an Evolutionary Concept Analysis. British Journal of Community Nursing, [online] 25(9), pp.438–445. doi:https://doi.org/10.12968/bjcn.2020.25.9.438.
Ahrens, E. and Elias, M. (2023). Effective Communication with Linguistically Diverse Patients: A Concept Analysis. Patient Education and Counseling, 115, pp.107868–107868. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2023.107868.
Ajayi, K. (2020). The importance of high-quality clinical records. BDJ Team, 7(5), pp.25–26. doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41407-020-0312-2.
Al-Worafi, Y.M. (2020). Chapter 6 – Medication errors. [online] ScienceDirect. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128198377000066.
Del Mar Fariña, M. and O’Neill, P. (2022). The Structural Clinical Model: Disrupting Oppression in Clinical Social Work through an Integrative Practice Approach. Clinical Social Work Journal. Doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-022-00841-3.
Duprez, V., van der Kaap-Deeder, J., Beeckman, D., Verhaeghe, S., Vansteenkiste, M. and Van Hecke, A. (2020). Nurses’ interaction styles when supporting patients in self-management: A profile approach. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 110, p.103604. doi https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2020.103604.
Edgar, D.A., Wilson, V.J. and Moroney, T. (2020). Which is it, person-centred culture, practice or care? It matters. [online] Research Online. Available at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/smhpapers1/1654/.
Ekman, I. (2022). Practising the ethics of person‐centred care balancing ethical conviction and moral obligations. Nursing Philosophy, 23(3). doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.12382.
Franko, T.S., Shah, V., Hong, K.L. and Bommareddy, A. (2020). Evaluate long-term retention and utilization of the situation, background, assessment, and recommendation (SBAR) communication technique. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning, 13(2). doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cptl.2020.09.001.
Hannawa, A.F., Wu, A.W., Kolyada, A., Potemkina, A. and Donaldson, L.J. (2021). The aspects of healthcare quality important to health professionals and patients: A qualitative study. Patient Education and Counseling, [online] 105(6). doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2021.10.016.
Jacob, P.D. (2020). Chapter 3 – Management of patient healthcare information: Healthcare-related information flow, access, and availability. [online] ScienceDirect. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128143094000033.
Lustgarten, S.D., Garrison, Y.L., Sinnard, M.T. and Flynn, A.W. (2020). Digital privacy in mental healthcare: Current issues and recommendations for technology use. Current Opinion in Psychology, 36(1), pp.25–31. doi https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.03.012.
Mallawarachchi̇S. and Mallawarachchi, C. (2020). Knowledge and Practices of Nursing Officers regarding Medical Record Keeping in a Government Hospital, Sri Lanka. Journal of Health Systems and Policies, [online] 2(2), pp.137–148. Available at: https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jhesp/issue/54975/726214.
Nursing and Midwifery Council (2018). The Code Professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses, midwives and associates. [online] Available at: https://tinyurl.com/zy7syuo [Accessed 19 Jan. 2024].
Oerlemans, A.J.M., Knippenberg, M.L. and Olthuis, G.J. (2020). Learning shared decision-making in clinical practice. Patient Education and Counseling, 104(5). doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2020.09.034.
Ranjan, P., Kumari, A. and Chakrawarty, A. (2015). How can Doctors Improve their Communication Skills? JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND DIAGNOSTIC RESEARCH, [online] 9(3). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4413084/ [Accessed 19 Jan. 2024].
Roche, P., Shimmin, C., Hickes, S., Khan, M., Sherzoi, O., Wicklund, E., Lavoie, J.G., Hardie, S., Wittmeier, K.D.M. and Sibley, K.M. (2020). Valuing All Voices: refining a trauma-informed, intersectional and critical reflexive framework for patient engagement in health research using a qualitative descriptive approach. Research Involvement and Engagement, 6(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-020-00217-2.
Shahid, S., Thabane, L., Marrin, M., Schattauer, K., Silenzi, L., Borhan, S., Singh, B., Thomas, C. and Thomas, S. (2020). Evaluation of a Modified SBAR Report to Physician Tool to Standardize Communication on Neonatal Transport. American Journal of Perinatology, 39(2). doi:https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0040-1715524.
Szalados, J.E. (2021). The Ethics and Laws Governing Informed Decision-Making in Healthcare: Informed Consent, Refusal, and Discussions Regarding Resuscitation and Life-Sustaining Treatment. The Medical-Legal Aspects of Acute Care Medicine, pp.43–73. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68570-6_3.
Thapa, D.R., Subedi, M., Ekström-Bergström, A., Areskoug Josefsson, K. and Krettek, A. (2022). Facilitators for and barriers to nurses’ work-related health qualitative study. BMC Nursing, 21(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-022-01003-z.
write