Significance of Professional Communication in Ensuring Patient Safety in Multicultural Patient Care Scenarios

Running head: PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION ESSAY
Professional communication essay
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PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION ESSAY
Introduction:
For the medical care setting, significance of the professional communication is vital.
Interpersonal and inter-professional communication has an essential role in catering to the
exact care requirements of the patient and developing a safe and optimal care plan (Tobiano
et al., 2015). Likewise, proficient communication is vital as well in order to ensure providing
the patient with care that endorses utmost safety and wellbeing for the patients. Equally, for
ethnic patient population, the influence of the efficient and culturally safe communication is
critical. In this essay the significance of effective professional communication will be
explored with respect to how it ensures patient safety in multicultural patient care scenarios.
Discussion:
The case scenario illustrates a patient named Mary Chan, a 66 year old female
belonging to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, who had been brought to our
facility so that she could have her comprehensive health assessment done. Now, primarily,
discussing the significance of the inter-personal communication and adequate therapeutic
interaction while carrying out the assessment for Mary, comprehensive assessment is
typically the preliminary care activity completed for a patient. As a result, if there is a lack of
effective communication to aid the patients in feeling connected and valued is crucial which
also helps the patient to open up and be more frank with the nurses and express the precise
needs and complaints to the nursing care professional (McCabe & Timmins, 2013).
Similarly, communicating effectively while also assessing the patient helps with
maintaining patient safety. Patient safety is the series of actions taken in order to protect
patients from any harm by the care providers or nurses (Riley, 2015). As illustrated by
Levett-Jones et al. (2014), patient safety is a central characteristic that a renowned and
dependable health care facility or care organization must harbour. In addition, patient safety
also assists in addressing the fundamental ethical principle of Beneficence. It is the obligatory

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PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION ESSAY
responsibility of the care providers to partake in on the care activities that results in
benefiting the care receivers. Patient safety also confirms that the care providers protect the
patient’s best interests at all circumstances and they are never in the way for any harm while
receiving care. Levett-Jones (2013) has stated patient safety maintenance to be a complex
phenomenon, surrounding a range of diverse interconnected activities, which demands robust
communication skills from all care providers. This case study epitomizes Mary Chan, an
elderly indigenous female, and the significance of communication in ensuring patient safety
and addressing each of the optimal care outcomes.
As illustrated by Levett-Jones (2013), effective communication is not just limited to
delivery of information, in fact, communication within care delivery environment is a two
way interaction that aids in distribution of information, feelings and meaning. Furthermore,
the Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights confers the nurse- patient communication as
inclusive, precise, timely along with apt. Furthermore, influence of efficient communication
is multidimensional on care outcomes, such as improved medicine adherence, decrease in
stress and anxiety, improved self-management, decrease in hospital days, decreased health
care price, improved patient satisfaction by the means of more patient- centred care. Patient
centred care is reinforced by 6 fundamental principles of nursing, namely, empathy, dignity,
autonomy, respect, choice, and transparency, and for every case, effective communication is
tremendously significant (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014).
Elaborating on the case scenario, the patient had been an aboriginal female, belonging
to a community that had been marginalized, socially isolated and pinned as outcasts across
different societal domains. Consequently, the first people of Australia are frequently seen
exhibiting resistance towards the health care industry and care providers attributed by either
fear of being discriminated, or for encountering communication barriers, particularly
language. It is central for the nurses to engross the patients in a culturally safe, effective and