Research Literacy for Health Practice: Communication Essay

This essay delves into the critical role of research literacy in healthcare, emphasizing effective communication as a cornerstone of patient safety and quality of care. It examines the importance of clear and accurate information exchange among healthcare professionals and patients, highlighting the potential consequences of communication breakdowns, such as medication errors and patient dissatisfaction. The essay identifies various barriers to effective communication, including the absence of systematic methods, fear of questioning authority, language differences, and workload pressures. It then explores the ethical implications of communication, focusing on principles like respect for autonomy, beneficence, justice, and non-maleficence. The essay argues for the implementation of evidence-based practices and ethical considerations to foster healthy relationships, gather adequate patient information, and ensure accurate information transfer during handoffs and delegations. The conclusion underscores the need to address communication barriers and uphold ethical principles to enhance patient well-being and minimize medical errors.

Running head: RESEARCH LITERACY FOR HEALTH PRACTICE
Research literacy for health practice
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1RESEARCH LITERACY FOR HEALTH PRACTICE
Introduction
In the healthcare organization, there are numerous delivery processes like patient
handovers and interfaces among the healthcare professionals. One has to interact with numerous
employees in the same organization like nurses, doctors, physicians and most importantly,
patients. For this efficient interaction in clinical practice, effective communication is important
where every piece of critical information should be accurately communicated between the
stakeholders (Rider et al. 2014). A comprehensive organizational communication change is
required in the healthcare organization to ensure conveying of critical information between the
healthcare professionals and clear orders of clinical handover (Eklof and Ahlborg Jr 2016). As a
newly appointed research manager in a healthcare organization, one realized that there is
communication problem in the organization that requires change. There are ethical principles
associated with communication that have an influence on risk and benefit in healthcare like
respect for personal autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice. Therefore, the
following essay involves the discussion of ineffective communication among the organization,
barriers witnessed and understanding of the ethical implications associated with implementation
of the recommended solutions for organizational communication change.
Part 1
In a healthcare organization, effective communication acts as an important tool for
improving patient satisfaction and enhances quality of care. If there is lack of communication
witnessed in the organization, it can lead to poor patient satisfaction, medication errors and
illness that might cause sudden death. In the recent, article by Khan et al. (2017) more than half
the number of hospital readmissions are due to miscommunication and can be avoided with

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effective communication among the healthcare professionals and patients. To address the patient
needs, it is important for the healthcare providers as frontline workers to have efficient
communication with the patients to determine their needs and provide solutions in a proactive
manner. These events can help to have a positive impact and enhance patient satisfaction.
According to Silverman, Kurtz and Draper (2016) no matter how knowledgeable a physician is,
he or she cannot help until unable to have good and open communication with the patient. Lyles
et al. (2013)suggests that strong therapeutic relationship between the health provider and patient
can only be formed when they exhibit effective communication skills and on the other hand the
patient’s ability to follow the medical recommendations. The benefit of effective communication
in a healthcare system has positive health outcomes for the patients and healthcare members as
stated by Kourkouta and Papathanasiou, (2014). Effective communication is required between
physician-nurse, nurse-patient and interpersonal communication skills among the members of
healthcare organization.
Poor communication is manifested among the physician that is responsible for the patient
care and hampering of medical progress. It also hinders collaborative care retarding the patient
treatment process and recovery progress. Clear background information about the patient is
important to provide referral to the consultants. Physician-nurse relationship is also important, as
nurses have to understand and follow the instructions given to them. Missing of any critical
information of patient can risk his or her life in danger. Delayed communication is another
instance where the medical progress is hampered and failure to convey timely information
between the doctors. Nurse-patient communication is also important as effective interaction help
to assess their important concerns and needs (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au. 2017).

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At the Darwin Private Hospital, in high dependency unit (HDU) it was found that it does
not comply with Australian system. A serious failure of medical staffs led to the breakdown of
the hospital procedures leading to death of Irene Magriplis, 75-year-old woman. The nurses and
medical staffs did not communicated regarding the fluid chart of the patient about the leaking of
bile and ended in providing sub-optimal care, eventually leading to death.
As a research manager, I witnessed that the nurse practitioner communicated with the
patient comprehensively about the plan of care. In a while, I noticed that hospitalist visited the
patient and outlined the changes that are required in the plan. In this way, the nurse lost
credibility with the patient and left the patient wondering that entire hospital management is
providing them a high level of care. Moreover, while conveying the information, patient and his
family did not ask questions and the nurse also did not seek feedback to assess the information
conveyed. I noticed various barriers hinder effective communication in the healthcare
organization. There is absence of a systematic communication method that promotes healthy
communication between the healthcare professionals and patients. Another barrier observed is
that one fear to question the higher authority and their medical ability (King et al. 2013). As a
result, nurses and patients are unable to raise their concerns when appropriate and it is
manifested in the whole organization. Language acts as the biggest barrier where the client or
patient does not understand English (Taylor, Nicolle and Maguire 2013). It is not always possible
to have an interpreter available in such a demanding and stressful hospital environment. This
results in patient dissatisfaction with poor health outcomes. Ethnic and minority groups are the
most disadvantaged and face language barrier in seeking healthcare services and facilities.
Workload and nurse shortages are also barriers where they do not have time to establish a
healthy therapeutic relationship with the patients. In addition, clinical handoffs or delegation

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occurs on a daily basis in the healthcare organizations. Poor communication between delegations
can hamper the patient safety, as there is lack of conveying of critical information endangering
the overall aspects of care of the patient (Fujimori et al. 2014).
Literature suggests that evidence-base practices are the best approaches to improve
communication skills, bring communication change in the organization, and prevent medical
errors. Firstly, there should be fostering of a healthy, therapeutic relationship that can enhance
effective communication between the healthcare providers and patients (Brock et al. 2013).
Secondly, there should be gathering of adequate information about the patient to avoid
communication gap and lack of conveying critical information during clinical handovers
(Manser et al. 2013). In the same way, information should also be provided to the concerned
stakeholders regarding the patient during delegation or plan diagnosis or treatment. Various
frameworks for communication are also employed by the healthcare organizations.
Part 2
Various ethical principles are associated with communication in health between the
healthcare professionals and patients. As the healthcare profession deals with combating illness
and improving one’s life, they have to work in accordance with the ethical principles. As a
ethical advisor, I witnessed that non-adherence to these principles can have ethical implications
like respect for autonomy, beneficence, justice and non-maleficence for the application of the
recommendations. It is highly recommended that healthcare professionals and focused groups
like patients have to understand the ethical implications and considerations required to
implement effective communication. The communicator in this communication network has the
ethical liability to provide effective information about the disease, treatment, management,

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prevention and health promotion with seeking of feedback from recipient to assess whether
important messages are properly accepted and understood.
Healthcare professionals have the ethical obligation to respect for autonomy of patients
where they have to seek informed consent regarding diagnostics, therapeutics and interventions.
This explains that patients need to be informed about purpose and interventions in a respectful
and proactive manner. According to Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) They
should employ simple and suitable language to make them informed and keeping in mind that
communication acts as the main component for diagnosis and treatment. These ethical principles
need to be applied in the healthcare system to avoid medical errors and ensure patient safety and
positive health outcomes (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au. 2017).
Justice is also an ethical principle that needs to be followed by the healthcare
professionals that there should be fair and equal resource distribution and should have ethical
decision-making. For the equality to healthcare services by users, the underlying ethical principle
is justice that ensures to provide equity of care and services irrespective of caste, creed, religion
or racial background. It is important there should be justified and ethical decision making that
work for the benefit of the patients ensuring safety (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au. 2017).
Non-malificence is also a guiding ethical principle that guides the healthcare
organizations in exhibiting effective communication in medical and nursing care. It is defined as
a way where one should be obliged to not inflict any intentional harm and provide clear and
efficient communication in succinct language that is understood by the patients. The main
focused group would be the patients who experience language barrier and do not understand
English. The healthcare professionals should abide by ethical principles like there should be no

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harm and an act, which is intrinsically wrong, should not be practiced and should work to
promote positive health outcomes for the service users. In this, it is recommended that proper
information should be conveyed to the patient that is relevant to his or her treatment avoiding all
unnecessary information (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au. 2017).
Beneficence, the ethical principle is practiced in the health communication. The
information should be gathered and provided to the recipient in a way where healthcare providers
should avoid harm. They should remove harm and promote good by addressing the
communication barriers and working in providing a collaborative care for the patients ensuring
highest quality of care. When communication takes place in an efficient manner, healthcare
providers reduces the gap for irrelevant information and issues of miscommunication among the
conveyer and recipient (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au. 2017). This promotes positive health
and well-being of the patient as there is no scope for medical errors or hampering of patient
safety. It is crucial that for providing health information among the providers and in between
them and service users, accuracy, balance and completeness of information should be there to
avoid missing of critical information and hampering patient safety. This is also crucial during
patient handovers as there is involvement of responsibility and accountability of the healthcare
providers as miscommunication can endanger patient’s safety and their adaptability to the illness,
treatment and management of the disease. Although, it is challenging to implement
communicational change in the organizations, it is important to address the communication
barriers and promote efficient communication in the organization.
Conclusion

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Effective communication is a crucial tool in healthcare that determines patient safety and
medical error rates. Every piece of information need to be communicated efficiently to avoid
communication gaps and ensure patient safety with positive health outcomes. Efficient
communication with the patients helps to determine their needs and provide solutions in a
proactive manner. Communication barriers like language is witnessed that hamper patient safety.
There are ethical principles associated with communication that have an influence on risk and
benefit in healthcare like respect for personal autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and
justice. These have ethical implications on the communication and healthcare organization as a
whole. Addressing these barriers and applying these ethical principles promotes positive health
and well-being of the patient as there is no scope for medical errors or hampering of patient
safety.
References
Brock, D., Abu-Rish, E., Chiu, C.R., Hammer, D., Wilson, S., Vorvick, L., Blondon, K., Schaad,
D., Liner, D. and Zierler, B., 2013. Interprofessional education in team communication: working
together to improve patient safety. BMJ Qual Saf, 22(5), pp.414-423.
Eklof, M. and Ahlborg Jr, G., 2016. Improving communication among healthcare workers: a
controlled study. Journal of Workplace Learning, 28(2), pp.81-96.

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Fujimori, M., Shirai, Y., Asai, M., Kubota, K., Katsumata, N. and Uchitomi, Y., 2014. Effect of
communication skills training program for oncologists based on patient preferences for
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