Effective Communication in Nursing: Patient-Centered Care Strategies

This essay explores the critical role of therapeutic communication skills and interprofessional collaboration in achieving patient-centered care within nursing practice. It defines therapeutic communication as a process where nurses use verbal and non-verbal methods to assist patients in understanding their health conditions, emphasizing its importance in providing safe and equitable care. The paper identifies core therapeutic communication skills such as active listening, empathy, and shared decision-making, while also addressing barriers like time constraints, language differences, and healthcare provider attitudes. Furthermore, it highlights the significance of interprofessional collaboration, where healthcare professionals from various disciplines work together to deliver comprehensive patient care. The essay concludes by discussing strategies to improve interprofessional communication, including the use of electronic health records and communication skills training, to enhance patient outcomes and overall healthcare quality. Desklib provides access to similar essays and study tools for students.

Running head: Professional studies
Professional studies
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Author’s note

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Introduction
Therapeutic communication skills and inter-professional collaboration practice are
essential requirements for providing safe nursing care and promoting Patient Centered Care. The
process of therapeutic communication can be defined as a process in which the nurse influences
a client or assist the client to have a better understanding through the verbal and the non-verbal
communication (Hashim, 2017). Patient centered care can be defined as recognizing the patient
to be the source of control and full partner in the provision of a compassionate and coordinated
care based on the respect for the patient’s preferences. Therapeutic communication is one of the
core elements of providing a patient centered safe and equal care (Hashim, 2017).
This paper will discuss the core therapeutic skills required to achieve Patient Centered
Care, the different barriers to effective communication, the role of the interdiscipinary team to
deliver a safe and advanced care and effective means of increasing communication between the
members of the health care team.
Core therapeutic communication skills required to achieve Patient Centered Care
The communication skills required for a patient centered care included elicitation of the
agenda of the patient with open ended question, not interrupting the patient and involve in a
focused active listening. Understanding the viewpoint of the patient regarding a disease and
conveying compassion and care are some of the key features of a patient centered
communication (Webster, 2013). Understanding the feelings and the grievances of the patient
entails exploration of the patient’s ideas, beliefs, feelings, experiences and concerns regarding
the impact of the clinical condition and as well as what the patient is actually expecting from the
physician. Empathy towards the patient can be expressed by naming the feelings, respect and
assistance and communicating and understanding and exploring the experience of the patient and
their emotions.
Webster, (2013) has identified “patient centered care” as one of the core features of a
high quality care , which is only possible if there is a good therapeutic communication between
the patient and the clinician. A patient centered care builds on consultations and decisions
involving shared decision making. Discussion and shared decision making can only be facilitated

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is effective communication takes place. It is therapeutic communication and the shared decision
making that empowers a patient by inviting them to consider the different treatment options.
A patient centered communication should include both verbal and the non-verbal
methods. The verbal methods should include continuers while talking to the patient, for
examples phrases like “ I hear you” , “go on”, legitimating- for example Phrases like-“ “That
makes sense”, Open-ended questions , understanding, exploring , rephrasing and rechecking the
understanding of the patient. The non-verbal communication modes would include- Judicial eye
contact, identifying the facial expressions like grinning, biting of lips, concerned frowning, and
attentiveness.
Barriers to effective communication in nursing practice
The initial barrier to a client centered communication is, lack of time. The health care
professionals might feel that they do not have enough time to explain, listen and discuss with the
client. Again some times, the patients are not able to put forward their grievances before they are
being intervened by the healthcare provider. According to the studies, patients take hardly 2-3
minutes to share their entire story when they are encountered with open-ended questions.
The second barriers to patient centered communication are to negotiate the evidence
based treatment regimen with the patients. In most of the cases, the treatments are more disease
oriented with reference to the laboratory reports, the blood pressure, all that mark the disease
outcomes. Again the patient might not understand the medical terms of the reports. Another
barrier to patient centered communication is the language barrier. Linguistic barriers are quite
common while dealing with the cross cultural patients.
Again, the attitude of the health care provider can be an important barrier to an effective
communication that is patient centered. Traditionally, the chemists have been regarded as the
drug experts and who have been trained about the pharmacotherapeutic properties for meeting
the medication related needs of the patient (Naughton, 2018). Scientific knowledge of the drug
might be important, but approach an approach that is patient centered, requires knowledge of the
patient’s outlooks, values, and philosophies towards the health. A pharmacist can only
understand the suitability of the indication, effectiveness and safety of the patient by
incorporating a holistic understanding of the patient condition. A pharmacist should be able to

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maintain a higher level of modesty and humility about the scientific understanding of the patients
such that the knowledge of the patient can be recognized.
Role of the interprofessional collaboration in patient centered care
In order to deal with the complex health care demands of the consumers and to provide
safe, efficient and high quality care, the health professionals should work in collaboration. This
method of interprofessional collaboration has been defined by WHO as “ more than one health
workers from the different professions work together with patient, family and the carers to
deliver a patient centered care.
Shared talking about the patient goals, formulation of the care plans of the patient and the
development of a patient centered plan can be found to be a useful strategy for the integration of
the perspective of the patient in the decision making process (van Dongen et al., 2019).
Interprofessional teamwork and the collaborationis important for facilitating critical patient
centered care. Members of the interdisciplinary team might be the surgeon, the general
practitioners, the registered nurse, specialist doctors from different sectors, dieticians, podiatrist,
diabetic care educator and several more. Each of the members can enhance the quality of care by
applying their individual expertise. Complex and terminal diseases like cancer or cardiovascular
diseases are often associated with comorbities that might require attention of several experts.
However, Van Royen,Rees & Groenewegen, (2014) have argued that, big multidisciplinary team
might give rise to conflict of interest, that might disrupt the patient care. However, there has to
be an efficient communication between each of the members. Relationship building values and
the principles of the team dynamics should be applied for performing effectively in the team
roles for the arrangement and delivery of a patient –population centered care. Each of the
members of the multidisciplinary team is accountable to practice under their ethical and legal
guidelines (Williams, 2016). Interprofesional collaboration is important in patient care as the
information exchange is a crucial factor in all the stages of a collective patient care. The impact
of this exchange can be profound. They pursue and share the same accountability in for
improving the patient experience of the care, improvement of the health of the population and
dropping the per capita-cost of the health care (Van Royen,Rees & Groenewegen, 2014). It is the
interprofessional collaborative team that informs the sectors of the health care that can be further

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strengthened. However, a patient centric and a collaborative practice represent a new playing
field for nowadays, health care plans.
Two communication strategies to improve interprofessional collaboration practice and
Patient Centred Care
Managing the health of the patient is an intricate task that requires backing by an
interprofessional team due to the involvement of multiple experts, the conflicts of interest
between them and their availability at a time. In order to improve the care coordination for
treating the patients, the members of the interprofessional team should communicate effectively
(Osbiston, 2013). Although the members of the interdisciplinary team might communicate via
facsimile or telephone, but repeated phone calls might disrupt the workflow. Sharing the access
to electronic health records (EHR) can support more efficient communication without disrupting
the workflow (Renfro, Ferreri, Barber & Foley, 2018). Communicating electronically via using
electronic patient records removes any ambiguity and saves much time. Keller et al., (2015) have
argued that some of the main issues related to electronic health records are the privacy and
confidentiality. Campanella et al., (2015) have again refuted this fact and have stated that privacy
and the security can be maintained by proper cyber security measures and using encrypted
passwords to prevent unauthorized access.
Literary evidence indicates towards the fact that communication skills training can be
effective in improving the supportive and the communication skills of the health care teams. A
randomized controlled trial of a scenario based on the competences of the nurses regarding
communicatio has indicated towards the introduction of communication trainings (Keller,
Eggenberger, Belkowitz, Sarsekeyeva & Zito, 2013). Hence another useful strategy would be to
provide communication skills training to those members that require communication skills
training.
Conclusion
Managing the health of the patient, especially with multiple comorbidities can be
challenging. However, the health care professionals adopt certain competency skills to deliver
patient centered care. One of the core competencies is to initiate successful communication with

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the patient. Successful communication with the patient entails both verbal and non-verbal
communication techniques, creation of a non-hostile environment, active listening to the
grievances, asking open ended questions and understanding the perception of the patient. The
paper had also stated how maintenance of electronic health records and proper communication
training among the interprofessional collaborative teams can enhance communication between
the members.

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References
Campanella, P., Lovato, E., Marone, C., Fallacara, L., Mancuso, A., Ricciardi, W., & Specchia,
M. L. (2015). The impact of electronic health records on healthcare quality: a systematic
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Keller, K. B., Eggenberger, T. L., Belkowitz, J., Sarsekeyeva, M., & Zito, A. R. (2013).
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Webster, D. (2013). Promoting therapeutic communication and patient-centered care using
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