NURSING: Patient Safety and Communication - A Comprehensive Essay

This essay explores the critical role of effective communication in nursing for ensuring patient safety, particularly in light of a case study involving a 66-year-old patient, Mary Chain. It emphasizes that patient safety is a shared responsibility between healthcare organizations and individual professionals, highlighting the necessity of clear and accurate communication between nurses, doctors, and patients. The essay draws upon the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia's code of conduct and underscores the importance of patient-centered care. It contrasts the positive outcomes of effective communication, such as accurate diagnoses and increased patient confidence, with the potential negative consequences of poor communication, including medical errors, wrong medication, and delayed treatment. Ultimately, the essay concludes that effective communication is fundamental to patient safety and quality healthcare, while Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments.

Nursing
Student’s Name
1/24/2019

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
The capability to communicate is a very significant skill and an important part of the job
of nurses and other healthcare professionals. Throughout the whole healthcare experience of a
patient, effective communication of nurse and doctors plays an important role. In order to
provide comprehensive care, it becomes the duty of nurses to communicate well from patient
intake to patient discharges. In the presented report, the focus will be developed with respect to
the advantages of effective communication in ensuring patient safety with respect to the given
case study. This is necessary to state that only benefits of effective communication are not there
but the lack of the same also has many disadvantages, which are further mentioned in this report.
Discussion

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Patient safety is an action, which is
undertaken by the organizations as
well as by individuals to provide a
safeguard to a patient with respect to
healthcare provided by them. It includes the duty of care and accountability as well (Davis, 2017).
Healthcare industry is facing the issue of patient safety at a vast level these days. Effective
communication is one of the important keys to reducing the risk to patient health. By way of
effective communication healthcare, professional and patient can better understand the points of
each other. According to the code of conduct provided by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of
Australia, nurses involved in healthcare must have effective communication with the patients,
doctors and other teammates. This code also provided some methods by using those nurses can
ensure the development of effective communication (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia,
2018). Here this is to mention that the meaning of communication is not limited to providing
healthcare advice to the patient but the same also includes to listing the patient and develop the
two-way discussion (vuws.westernsydney.edu.au, 2018). Further, the patient expects to be
communicated in such ways that are timely, accurate, inclusive and appropriate.
In the given case, a patient named Mary Chain is an old woman who has attained the age
of 66 years. She presents in the general practice clinic for the health assessment. Considering her
health this is to state that, good communication is required to ensure her safety. Here to
understand the issue of Mary and to further communicates the same to other healthcare
professionals, effective communication is necessary.

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Patient communication is crucial. Mary is an old woman and therefore requires extra
care. The atmosphere of the hospital is
generally stressful and there is a possibility
that Mary can be frustrated and impatient if
she feels that she is not being treated well.
Further moving the focus towards the safety of
Mary, this is to mention that effective
communication can prove a good tool. Lack of Communication can give rise to the situation
where medical errors can occur (Gluyas, 2015). These errors can result in some serious injuries
to the patient or sometimes the unexpected patient death. In the subjective case too, the
communication of nurse and physician seems to be necessary for several reasons. Firstly, in
order to get the desired outcome in Mary’s health, nurses are required to properly communicate
the issue to doctors. Any lack of communication or misunderstanding in the same can initiate a
wrong treatment for Mary. The problem is really general. Many of the cases have happened there
where a patient suffered from no treatment or wrong treatment because of poor communication
of nurses and doctors. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), almost 10 percent of
the total number of admitted patients faces damages because of poor healthcare and one third out
of these incidents happen because of human errors.
Taking the situation of Mary into an account in the case, her health condition cannot
allow her to tolerate any wrong treatment in this case. Following are some of the impact of poor
communication that Mary can suffer from:-
 Because of poor communication between nurses or nurses and doctors, patients can be
treated wrong medication.

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 In case of no communication or poor communication between a nurse and a patient, Mary
can take the rights medicines in the wrong amount or at the wrong time.
 If health Information of Mary would not be communicated from one professional to
another on time, this may cause harm to her health.
 If doctors or nurses would not listen to the concerns of Mary then they cannot come to
know the exact healthcare condition of her and there is a chance that they probably make
a delay in their actions.
Above mentioned are few negatives that can happen there in the absence of effective
communication. Patient-centered care can be treated as the most significant attribute of safe
communication in nursing (Vuws.westernsydney.edu.au, 2018). As the name implies in the
Patient-centered care, healthcare professional makes their focus on patients only and place the
‘patient’ at the center. In this case, for Mary, it is necessary to have extra and patient-centered
care. Instead, negative results, positive outcomes can be there for Mary if nurses would develop a
proper and effective communication. If Mary would receive a healthy communication, there are
chances that she can be recovered early. Further, she would be treated with the right medicines
and will be able to feel the factors such as confidence, love, and safety. In addition to this, the
communication removes all the misunderstanding and provides a sense of confidence to
teammates as well as to the patient. Medical mistakes and technical problems would not be there
for Mary effective communication will be carried out by nurses.
Conclusion

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This is to conclude that in the presented essay importance of patient safety and the
importance of communication in patient safety has been discussed. This is to conclude that
effective communication is a very basic requirement in healthcare in order to ensure patient
safety. When effective communication can lead the positive result to patient health, the absence
of the same can increase the risk to the same. Patients can be diagnosed wrongly or can be
treated with wrong medicines if communication would not be there.
References
Davis, C. (2017). The importance of professional accountability. Nursing Made Incredibly
Easy!, 15(6), 4. doi: 10.1097/01.nme.0000525557.44656.04
Gluyas, H. (2015). Effective communication and teamwork promotes patient safety. Nursing
Standard (2014+), 29(49), 50.
Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. (2018). Code of conduct for nurses. Retrieved From:
www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/documents/default.aspx?record...dbid=AP..

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vuws.westernsydney.edu.au. (2018). Patient safety and communication. Retrieved From:
https://vuws.westernsydney.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-3858239-dt-content-rid-
28697060_1/courses/401029_2019_sumb/2017%20PC_A2_Extract
%201%20_Critical_Conversations_for_Patient_Safety%20Extract%201.pdf
Vuws.westernsydney.edu.au. (2018). Patient-centred care.
https://vuws.westernsydney.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-3858239-dt-content-rid-
28697116_1/courses/401029_2019_sumb/2017_PC_A2_Extract
%203_Critical_Conversations_for_Patient_Safety%20Extract%203.pdf