Effective Communication in Healthcare: An Annotated Bibliography

Running head: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Annotated bibliography
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aslakson, R. A., Wyskiel, R., Thornton, I., Copley, C., Shaffer, D., Zyra, M., ... &
Pronovost, P. J. (2012). Nurse-perceived barriers to effective communication regarding
prognosis and optimal end-of-life care for surgical ICU patients: a qualitative
exploration. Journal of palliative medicine, 15(8), 910-915.
The article by Aslakson et al. (2012) has emphasized on the effective communication
barriers that are prevalent in the context of surgical ICU scenario. In this article, the integration
of palliative care in case of ICU patients and the challenges in effective communication in the
scenario has been discussed excellently. Here the authors have developed a focus group to
identify the effective communication barriers in palliative care and how it impacts the delivery of
optimal end of life care to the patients. The article could identify 34 barriers to optimal
communication that they have summarized into four basic domains, logistics, physical
discomfort, inadequate skills, and the fear of conflict. The study concluded with the verdict that
the nurses that provide bedside care in the intensive care units for terminally ill patients face a
variety of different communication barriers that impede the optimal discussions of prognosis and
district end of life care planning for the patient with surgical critical illness. This has provided
key insights regarding the communication barriers that are present in ICU scenario. The only
limitation of the study has been the small sample size with only a total of 32 ICU nurses.

2
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sweeney, L. A., Warren, O., Gardner, L., Rojek, A., & Lindquist, D. G. (2014). A
simulation-based training program improves emergency department staff
communication. American Journal of Medical Quality, 29(2), 115-123.
Another very important area of effective communication is emergency department. There
are various communication barriers that are prevalent in the emergency department which can
negatively impact that care delivery and discharge planning of the patients. The article by
Sweeney et al. (2014) has attempted to discover the impact of a simulation based training
program s to improve effective communication in the emergency department. In this article the
main objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of project CLEAR!, which is a crew resource
management based simulation program. The effectiveness of this project as a communication
improving tool was tested to improve the communication between the emergency department
staff. This has been a survey based study that compared perception of both physicians and
nurses and their quality of communication before and after the installation of the program. The
survey score revealed that the overall communication skills and competence between the staff
members improved considerably after the simulation based training program. Along with that
this crew resource management based communication program also improved the
communication between the staffs and the patients in the emergency department scenario. The
only limitation of the study had been the survey only recorded the perception of the staff and did
not take into consideration the patient's perception of communication before and after the survey.