Importance of Effective Communication and Health Literacy in Healthcare Environment

This report discusses the importance of effective communication and health literacy in healthcare environment. It also provides strategies to implement effective communication and health literacy in healthcare environment.

Running Head: NURSING, CULTURAL SAFETY IN HEALTHCARE
Nursing, Cultural safety in healthcare
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
There exists a strong positive relationship between the communication skills of the
healthcare providers and the capacity of the patient to follow through the medical
recommendation, adopt preventive healthcare behavior and manage chronic healthcare condition
all by themselves. The perception of the healthcare users of the quality of the service provided by
a healthcare home is highly dependent on the quality of interaction between them and the
healthcare service provider. According to the researchers, the clinical ability to listen, explain as
well as emphasize has the potential to impose a profound effect on functional as well as
biological health outcomes along with satisfaction of the patient and experience of care
(Heijmans et al. 2015). The rationale of the report is to provide effective knowledge and
information about the importance of effective communication and health literacy in the
healthcare environment. Apart from that the purpose of the report also includes analysis and
evolution of strategies to enforce effective communication ad healthcare literacy within the
workplace.
Importance of effective communication in healthcare environment
Communication in healthcare setting is considered to be one of the the mot crucial tools
the healthcare service providers posses to provide effective care to the patients and this enhance
their satisfaction.
1. Effective communication helps the healthcare service users to feel comfortable
Considering the fact majority of the healthcare service users are highly anxious
and tensed about their health, tests and treatments provided to them, several time they
demonstrate aggressiveness and rude behavior. Possessing good communication with the

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healthcare service providers has the potential to reduce the anxiety an d build confidence
within the patient.
2. Effective communication helps he healthcare service users to feel valued
Considering the fact that majority of the healthcare home in Australia treats
patients from different cultural background, lack of effective communication may make
them feel unwelcomed and this in turn can impose negative impact on their health and
acceptance of treatment. Hence, it is highly crucial for healthcare service users to
demonstrate respect and sympathy for their feelings and culture. This demonstration will
help the healthcare service users to feel valued and thus will enhance their satisfaction
level.
3. Effective communication between the healthcare employees enhance the quality of
healthcare service
Good communication is crucial during discussing the requirements of the patients,
crucial information regarding the history of the patient and the upcoming steps that needs
to be taken to ensure effective treatment. Cultural difference between healthcare
professionals has the potential to get enhanced due to ineffective communication and that
may lead to conflict. This in turn enhances the risk of patient injuries, malpractices and
even death goes up. This type of incidence can only be prevented by ensuring effective
communication among the healthcare service users. In order to ensure effective
communication within the healthcare professionals several technologies has been used by
healthcare organizations. For instance, the exchange of information during the change in
shift is often found to be a lengthy process (Beauchamp et al., 2015). Additionally, the
system associated with the exchange of information between nurses is often not well

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organized. Several time nurses are fund to write notes n the scrubs. As a result of
ineffective communication, crucial details often get left out and treatment or medication
that has been given to the patient once is repeated. This phenomenon often results in
deterioration of the health of the patients. In order to deal with this issue, the management
of several organizations is incorporating software that allows good communication and
information distribution during change of shift.
Strategy to implement effective communication in healthcare environment
Considering the fact that ineffective communication between healthcare professionals
and the service users lead to a negative workplace culture along with inferior quality of service,
the following strategies can eradicate the issue y implementing effective communication within
the organization.
1. Incorporating effective communication in the healthcare organization’s compulsory
training program
According to the researchers, majority of the healthcare homes in Australia
recruits employees from across the world and hence the organizations are cross cultural
(Meuter et al., 2015). Since the cultural origin of the employees varies, cultural conflicts
are frequent which in turn deteriorates the quality of service offered and the job
satisfaction of the employees.
In order to deal with the issue, both newly appointed as well as experienced employees
should be provide with mandatory training sessions where they will be taught about the
importance of effective communication between themselves as well as with the patients.
Along with that, instruction will be provided to them about how to clarify their questions

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and verify the feelings and thoughts of the healthcare service users and engage
themselves in empathetic listening.
2. Creating effective communication a part of the culture of the healthcare
organization
Provision of the training is not enough to enforce effective communication. Hence
the leaders of the organization must demonstrate positive behavior and make it a core part
of the workplace culture. This in turn will encourage the healthcare staffs to act similarly
(Gianduzzo et al., 2016). Communication can also be incorporated in employees
evolution an feedbacks. Apart from that, rewarding the employees who demonstrates
good communication will also help the management to incorporate communication in
organizational culture.
3. Implementing interpreters as a communication tool so that cross cultural patients
can also communicate effectively
Often it has been observed that the communication between the healthcare service
provider and users are getting hampered due to language barrier. This can lead to several
misunderstanding which has the potential to impose negative impact on the treatment of
the patient (McCaffery et al., 2016). Recruiting an interpreter has the potential to solve
the issue. Recruiting interpreter will not only help the healthcare service providers to
understand the specific issues of the patients but will also help them to demonstrate
empathy and support that will enhance the satisfaction of the healthcare service users.
4. Implementing a healthcare service user satisfaction survey
Receiving feedbacks from the patients provides the healthcare service provides
with the insights about the experience of the patient. This in turn will help them to assess

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the loophole in the process and eradicate the same to enhance the satisfaction of the
healthcare service users.
5. Scheduling regular meeting with the employees
Professional development along with learning can be considered as the key to
improve the overall communication skills. Hence monthly meetings should be scheduled
with the staffs in order to enhance the discuss the survey feedback of the patients and
access the areas of strengths as well as weaknesses (Jorm, 2015). This will help the
management in effective decision making. Incorporating employees in the decision
making will also empower the employees and enhance their commitment towards the
organization.
Importance of health literacy in healthcare environment
The term health literacy is defined as the capacity of individuals to obtain, process and
understand basic health information in order to make appropriate health decisions. The chief
purpose of health literacy is to enhance the degree of safety of the healthcare service users and
protect them from healthcare related harms. According to researchers, patients with limited
healthcare literacy are less likely to report receiving patient-centered communication at their
health care organization compared to those with adequate health literacy (Jayasinghe et al.,
2016). Health literacy is essential for successful access to care and use of services, self-care of
chronic conditions, and maintenance of health and wellness. It is considered to be the
fundamental to healthcare sine it make the healthcare service users to possess a active role while
making decisions and managing the diseases. According to researchers, nearly half of the adult
population of Australia lack health literacy skills that is required to understand as well as act on
the demand of health system and health information (Diviani, 2015). The survey also states that

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merely 12 percent of the adults posses appropriate health literacy proficiency in order to perform
complex health tasks tha includes calculating the share of an employee of the health insurance
costs.
Strategy to implement health literacy in healthcare environment
According to researchers, addressing health literacy requires a collaborative and
coordinated approach (Johnson, 2014). In order to implement health literacy in the workplace the
following steps should be taken by the management of healthcare homes.
1. Embedding health literacy into systems: This process includes development and
implementations of policies at both social as well as organizational level that support
action to address health literacy. Altering the funding mechanizes to encourage the
awareness on health literacy can be done by the management. Alog with that healthcare
staffs should be provided with effective training o educate the healthcare users about their
issue (O'Halloran et al., 2015).
2. Providing the healthcare service users with adequate knowledge: Healthcare users will be
provided with detailed information about their specific diseases. The process of providing
information should be effective enough to prevent panics among the healthcare service
users. In contrary, effective information about the remedies they can opt to get healed
easily will enhance their confidence and efficiency to deal with the diseases (Lim,
McCabe & Purcell, 2017).
3. Asking open-ended question to the health care service users: In order to ensure that the
healthcare service users have understood the information provided by the nurses
effectively, open-ended questions about his feelings about the issue and how he is

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planning to cope up with the same should be asked (Cheng & Dunn, 2015). This will help
the healthcare professionals to access whether the healthcare service users are confident
enough about their health literacy.
4. Using the teach back communication method: The teach back communication method
ensures that the healthcare service users has gained enough knowledge and has
understood the instruction effectively (Coles et al., 2016).
5. Integrating health literacy into education: This process includes educating consumers as
well as healthcare providers. It can include population health programs, health
promotions as well as education strategies, social marketing and school health education
(Moore et al., 2018).
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that both effective communication and
healthcare literacy is highly crucial to enhance the quality of contemporary healthcare system.
Enforcing effecting communication within the healthcare service users and service providers has
the potential to enhance the satisfaction of the patient. Along with that, Effective communication
within the employees helps the same to eradicate conflict between the employees. Healthcare
literacy, on the other hand, within the health care users has the potential to protect them from
health related harms. Hence, Healthcare organizations should incorporate effective tools in order
to ensure efficient communication and healthcare literacy within the organization.

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