Improving Communication Practices in Healthcare: Strategies for Nurses

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND CLINICAL GOVERNANCE
Leadership and clinical governance
Name of the student:
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Author’s note

1LEADERSHIP AND CLINICAL GOVERNANCE
Introduction:
Clinical risk management has become an important priority within the health care
environment to improve quality and prevent situations leading to harm or safety issues for
patient. As nurses spend the maximum time with patient, nurses have a vital role in clinical risk
management and coordination with diverse health care professional. Sherwood & Zomorodi,
(2014) emphasize that nurses should develop quality and safety competency to have a leading
role in safety of the health care system. A nurse can display his/her leadership skill to identify
hazards and implement strategies to minimize them. Currently, incidence of medical errors or
adverse event has become a major issue and poor communication practices among health care
staff is regarded as the major cause of such errors (Carayon, Xie & Kianfar, 2014).This report is
based on the scenario of the Nurse Unit Manager, who has identified incidence of patient due to
poor communication practices among staffs for the past few months. Hence, in response to this,
the main purpose this report is to identify strategies that a Registered Nurse can use to improve
communication practices and critically discuss about its role in increasing patient safety. The
report also describes the method to implement the identified strategy on the ward and its
implication for professional nursing practice.
Identification of strategy for improving communication practices
In high risk industry, effective team work and coordination between team members is
crucial to achieve desired outcome. Health care is also a high risk industry where poor
communication is regarded as the most common cause of adverse event within the health care
environment (Gluyas, 2015). O’Daniel & Rosenstein, (2008) shows that effective clinical
practice is the process where critical information is communicated accurately across team

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members. However, faulty communication practices increases risk of patient safety related
issues. Hence, it can be said that lack of communication is the main factor that leads to medical
errors and severe injury for patient. As a registered nurse (RN), the most crucial step would be to
identify relevant strategies to improve communication between staff members.
To make effective collaborative practice a reality, structured communication tools or
strategy is most important resource to provide specific framework to all health care staffs for
communication. Briefing sessions or short discussion between team members is a structured
communication strategy to promote sense of collaboration and set the tone for open
communication between health staffs (Rodriguez et al., 2015). In the context of the scenario of
RN to improve communication practices on the ward, the strategy is to implement short briefing
strategy where team can meet for 10-15 minutes and stay informed about their work and plans.
The advantage of such huddle within the health care environment is that it provide opportunities
to both bedside caregivers as well as front-line staff to collect information, engage in decision
making and prioritize their work. Implementation of such huddle will ensure that health care
team meets frequently and they are proactive in addressing needs and demands of patient
(Leykum et al., 2014). The core purpose of communication between health care staffs is to be
aware about the patient situation and their circumstances. Evidence proves that situation
awareness among team is enhanced by safety huddles and briefings. It explained that safety
huddles and briefing process enable continuity of care and achieving communication practice
improvement in health care setting (Cornell eet al., 2014).
Apart from daily briefing before rounds, Leykum et al., (2014) also proposed use of the
Situation Task Intent Concern Calibrate (STICC) framework during rounds to help the health
staff related to patient and understand their issue. This is essential as it guides clinicians and

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others staffs to come to an understanding about patient and their critical condition. In the context
of scenario, where incidence of error was the main reason for registered nurse to develop
strategies for communication improvement, the STICC can be useful communication template
for nurses when time pressures lead to mistakes for them. The STICC tool was developed by the
US Forest Service to provide guidance to firefighters. The STICC enabled staff to consider the
situation (S), the task (T), intent (I), concern (C) and calibrate (C). Currently health care
providers are also training nurses and physician to use the tool. This tool will enable staffs to
anticipate complication in patient and communicate those changes effectively with the staffs
during care transitions (Leykum & O'leary, 2017).
From the above discussion, it can be affirmed that briefing sessions before rounds along
with use of STICC framework before round is the strategy identified to address communication
failure and improve communication practices among staffs in the ward. This strategy is also part
of the PRISm intervention implemented by Leykum et al., (2014) thus proving its effectiveness
in clinical setting. The STICC framework has been specifically chosen because it has been
designed to assess and control communication failures that lead to inpatient adverse event
(Leykum et al., 2015). Hence, for the goal of improving communication practice, the
implementation of this tool will clarify RN regarding how teams are making sense of team
discussion during daily rounds.
Impact of strategy in increasing patient safety
Incidence of medical error or adverse event was the main trigger for changing
communication practices in the ward. Various evidences also prove that poor communication
among health care staff is the leading cause of medical errors in health care setting (Heale &