Family-Centered Care and Communication in Aged Care: Mr. Taylor's Case

This essay examines the critical role of effective communication in aged care, using a case study involving Mr. William Taylor, an elderly patient. The analysis highlights communication breakdowns between family members and healthcare professionals, leading to miscommunication and anxiety. The paper argues for the integration of family-centered care, assertive communication, and the SOAP nursing tool to improve patient outcomes. It identifies the concepts of family-centered care and assertive communication as crucial frameworks, and the SOAP tool for effective clinical handover. The essay emphasizes the importance of providing detailed information to family members, fostering a calm and empathetic environment, and ensuring transparent communication to reduce anxiety and promote patient well-being. The application of these strategies aims to resolve miscommunication, prevent medical errors, and enhance the overall quality of care for elderly patients. The essay concludes by reinforcing the significance of these strategies in promoting faster recovery and high satisfaction in older patients. The document is contributed by a student to be published on the website Desklib, a platform providing AI-based study tools.

Running head: COMMUNICATION
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Introduction:
With the aging of Australian, the accurate aged care is crucial for healthy and active
aging of the older population in Australia (Riley, 2015). The case study reflects the fall injury
of Mr. William Taylor, is an elderly managed 86 whose family members are unaware of his
health condition because of inappropriate communicate with family members and inappropriate
nursing literacy of clinical handover of the nurse which led to the miscommuniaction. In the
current context, family-centered care is a concept with assertive communication, as a framework
would be used in this essay. This paper will argue that integrating family-centered care with
accurate handover nursing tool and assertive communication is an effective strategy in promoting
faster recovery and high satisfaction in the older patient. This paper will illustrate Identification
of the concepts, communication framework, and nursing tools, Analysis of the Communication
Scenario and application in the following paragraph.
Identification of the concepts, communication framework, and nursing tools:
In the current context, the concept of family-centered care would be appropriate to
promote the wellbeing of Mr. Tylor. The assertive communication would be an appropriate
framework with Soap as a handover tool for this scenario. In the current scenario, Mr. Tylor is
required to shift to the hospital because of the health injury where his family members have no
idea about the health condition because, in the clinical handover, no mention of family member
was written. On the other hand, family members are required to transparent about the health
condition of Mr. Tylor. As discussed by Giger (2016), family-centered care is suitable which
incorporate family member in the aged care process. The positive aspect of this concept is that
the presence of family member provides the patient with a sense of comfort and safe but negative

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aspect of it is that family members may feel anxious (McMillan et al., 2017). On the other hand,
assertive communication is a suitable framework where communication is a calm and positive
way of expressing individual. The positive aspect of the communication is that nurses being
transparent about the patient which reduce the anxiety of family members and it have no
negative outcome (Williams, Ilten, & Bower, 2016). Lastly, SOAP (subjective, objective,
assessment, and plan) would effect since the positive aspect of it is that documentation employed
by nurses help to provide the overview of the patient to another nurse during handover which
further reduces miscommunication (MacLean et al., 2017).
Analysis of the communication:
In the current context, ineffective communication between family members and the
nurses along with the ineffective communication with handover nurse also observed. In the
scenario, Mr. William Taylor had fall injury and required to transfer to the hospital to the aged
care facility. The triage nurse informed family members with incomplete information such as
Mr. Tylor is hurt and need to go to the hospital neglecting the context of hurt and health issues,
highlighting the ineffective way of communication. As discussed by Mikkonen, Kyngäs and
Kääriäinen (2015), the best way of conveying information regarding the ill patient is to provide
detailed information of the patient to the family members in a calm and positive tone which
would be effective to reduce the anxiety of the family members. According to Williams,
Kemper and Hummert (2016), it is the right of family members to receive detailed information
about the patient through clear and concise communication which is lacking in this scenario.
Consequently, family members were anxious which reflected by their expression of the anger
and unhappiness. According to Deane and Fain (2016), the most suitable attributes of
communicating with family members are providing detailed information of the patient with a

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polite tone and showing empathy so that family members of the patient feel comfortable and
calm. The above situation could be avoided by communicating with the family members in the
assertive way providing the opportunity to family members (Tjia et al., 2017). Moreover, the
ineffective communication is observed between triage handover nurse since handover nurse was
unaware of the family members waiting for the patient because neither triage nurse had
mentioned it through verbal communication nor it was written in the handover (Fleischmann et
al., 2016).
Application of concepts, communication framework, and nursing
communication tools:
Considering the current scenario, family-centered care can be applied by incorporating
family members in the care process. Family-centered care approach is a concept which provides
the opportunity to work with the family members ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the patient
and family member as observed in this case. As the family members are anxious which reflected
through their behavior of the family members such as using loud voice showing anger, the
family-centered care would help them to get the information and reduce the anxiety. One of the
crucial parts of the family-centered approach is assertive communication framework (Reeves et
al., 2017). In the current context, assertive communication with the family members can be
applied which would be face to face communication with the detailed information using polite
and honest word reflecting the empathy for the patient. According to Trahan, Spiers &
Cummings (2016), the communication should provide the opportunity to the family members to
share their concern with the health professionals which further ensure the wellbeing of the family
members since it helps family members to reduce their emotional distress and prepare the family
members to take the rational decision for the patient.

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In the current context, nursing communication tool SOAP can be applied to ensure proper
family-centered care for the patient. As discussed by Reichardt et al. (2016), SOAP is problem-
oriented documentation technique where subjective data reflects the feeling of the patient,
intensity of the issue, what further tests are required, on the other hand, objective data reflects
the physical examinations. The assessment provides identification of the problem, and nursing
diagnosis and plan part provides the possible interventions required for the patient to faster
recovery (Bleckwenn et al., 2016). These communication tools not only provide the detailed
information of the patient but also provide resolve the miscommunication between nurses as
observed in this case study (Anderson, Davis & McLaughlin, 2018). In the current scenario, the
detailed information regarding the subjective data, objective data, and assessment along with the
presence of family members were missing which further led to the miscommunication between
family members and nurses. The lack of information also can led to medical error or
misdiagnosis, questioning the safety of the patient. Hence, to promote literacy and improve
communication, SOAP as a nursing tool can be applied.
Conclusion:
To conclude, case study reflects the fall injury of Mr. William Taylor, is an elderly
managed 86 whose family members are unaware of his health condition because of inappropriate
communicate with family members and inappropriate nursing literacy of clinical handover of the
nurse. This essay argued that integrating family-centered care with accurate handover nursing
tool and assertive communication is an effective strategy in promoting faster recovery and high
satisfaction in the older patient. The identified concept is the concept of family-centered,
assertive communication as framework and SOAP as a handover was used where the family was

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incorporated in the plan. In the current context, family centered care was integrated to reduce
the anxiety of family members and promoting the wellbeing of patient.

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