The Importance of Communication in Diverse Healthcare Settings

This report delves into the critical role of communication within healthcare environments, emphasizing its significance in ensuring effective information transfer between healthcare providers and patients. It defines communication, identifies key features of different communication types (verbal, non-verbal, written, and visual), and examines common barriers such as language, physical limitations, and cultural differences. The report further proposes strategies to overcome these barriers, including using simple language, active listening, and personalized video recordings. It also discusses relevant communication theories like behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, and social theories, highlighting their application in healthcare settings to improve patient understanding and comfort. The conclusion underscores the importance of selecting appropriate communication channels and encoding messages effectively for successful decoding and overall communication effectiveness.

Importance of Communication in
Health care settings

Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION
• IDENTIFY KEY FEATURES OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF COMMUNICATION
• BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION
• WAY TO OVERCOME THESE BARRIERS
• COMMUNICATION THEORIES
• CONCLUSION
• REFERENCES

Communication :
Communication involves transfer of information from one place to another. The
process of communication involves at least a message, one sender and a recipient. It
is considered to be a complex process which includes cultural situation, emotions,
medium to communicate and location( Barr and Dowding, 2019)
Communication

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Communication involves various forms which involves Verbal, Non-verbal, Written
and Visual communication.
• Verbal Communication: Verbal communication involves usage of words in order
to convey a message. Some forms of verbal communication involves oral and
written communication (Berkowitz, 2021)
• Non-verbal communication : It involves sharing of information through eye-
contact. Posture, facial expressions and body language.

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There are various essential features of communication that involves:
• Two -way process : The process of communication involves understanding and
information.
• Can be formal or informal : The process of communication follows a proper
formal channel provided by organization structure(Hollnagel and Braithwaite,
2019)
• Involves At least Two Persons: The process of communication involves at least
two persons a sender and a receiver.

Barriers to Communication
• Language barriers: This type of barrier may arise if sender and recipient
language is different.
• Physical barriers : These barriers are the one which create problem related to
ignorance of medium, environment and distance(Post and Blustein, 2021)
• Cultural Barriers: Each culture have a different way of communicating due to
which discussion becomes difficult to understand.

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In order to overcome barrier in communication in healthcare sector there are few
ways which need to be followed:
• Use easy-to-understand language : In order to overcome language barrier it is
important to use simple words (Flick, 2017).

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• Learn to listen and understand : Listening plays an important part in the
communication process.
• Recording each visit : In case of healthcare, using personalized video recordings
will help to bridge the gap between doctor and patient( Alaiad and Zhou,2017).

Communication Theories
• Behavioural Theory : It involves how people behave in different ways to sort out
and deal with people for effective communication through thinking, feeling and
acting(Haddad and Ali, 2020).
• Humanistic Theory: It involves approaching an individual positively.

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• Cognitive Theory: It involves recognising about situation or need of a person in
order to implement instantly according to behaviour.
• Social Theory: In context to healthcare it is important for medical professionals
to interact with patient in order to understand them better and make them feel
comfortable in the hospital environment.

Conclusion
From the above report it can be concluded that effective communication
plays an important role in choosing an appropriate communication channel.
The messages which are involved in the communication process must be
encoded in a form that can be easily conveyed through channels. Once the
message is appropriately received, the recipient need to decode the message
as successful decoding plays an important role in communication process.

References
• Barr, J. and Dowding, L., 2019. Leadership in health care. Sage.
• Berkowitz, E. N., 2021. Essentials of health care marketing. Jones &
Bartlett Learning.
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2019. Taking
action against clinician burnout: a systems approach to professional well-
being.