A huge number of people have had an opportunity to work as a team. According to Neider and Schriesheim (2005), a very critical factor for team success is effective communication. It is only through this that trust is built amongst the team members. A team that has perfect communication line will end up accomplishing any tasks assigned to them efficiently and accurately. It is likewise through communication that messages are sent to people. In the case of a health care setting, effective communication is crucial. Any breakdown in the communication process will lead fatal consequences when it comes to the provision of patient care. According to the Health and Disability Commissioner of New Zealand, a huge percentage of complaints brought forward are as a result of communication ineffectiveness within the healthcare setting (Hill, 2011). Therefore, this is an indication that it is crucial for health care professionals to have effective communication if positive health outcomes are to become realized.
In order to ensure safe and competent practice, the necessity of having effective communication should be a must requirement for all health care professionals. However, in the health care setting, having self-awareness and self-knowledge is important if this is to be achieved (O'Toole, 2012). The health care professionals interact with each other, patients and other colleagues on a day-to-day basis and for this interaction to be improved, there must be an existence of perfect communication skills. By having self-awareness, and a health professional will have the ability to have listening skills that have no judgments and assumptions leading to an excellent communication. Before one can listen to what others have to say, one must first learn how to listen to oneself deeply. It is through having self-knowledge and self-awareness that an individual will have the ability to understand another person’s point of view leading to a mutual understanding between the health professionals (O'Toole, 2012). When a practicing health care professional wants to pass a message to colleagues, patients, family members, and other audience, he/she must ensure that they consider various factors. It is because different people have dissimilar levels of understanding and knowledge which might hinder their ability to comprehend to particular messages. Some of these factors might include the age, background, experience and level of cognitive abilities can affect one's level of understanding thus distorting the message being passed forward.
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The existence of health care professionals is mainly to offer assistance to individuals who are vulnerable in relation to the health and well-being. As such, for this to be made possible, effective communication is necessary. For a patient, they must have the ability to state what they are suffering from so that a health care professional can offer assistance. In the case of a health care professional, one must have the ability to carefully communicate with the patient so that a comprehensive diagnosis and treatment plan can be developed. The medical professional might also require the assistance of other colleagues in offering support to the patient which indicates that they must also be able to pass on the message correctly to their colleagues. This is an indication that, there must be the development of mutual understanding between the two groups which will lay down a foundation upon which a therapeutic relationship is developed (O'Toole, 2012). It is through this relationship that the needs and wants of the person will be used in developing intervention strategies thus leading to the facilitation of a family, person or client centered health care practice.
For mutual understanding to exist, all parties must be on the same page when it comes to the non-verbal and verbal cues (Themistocleous et al., 2009). However, for health care professionals, this is different for respect is the foundation upon which mutual understanding is built upon. The professional must be one will understand all people regardless of their status, beliefs, failures, weaknesses, economic status or material possessions. It is through respect that a health care professional values all people for it lead to the development of empathic reactions. Most people, who seek help from health care professionals are vulnerable and may feel disconnected. However, through mutual understanding, the professional will have the ability to demonstrate care and understanding each person’s vulnerability leading to a humane and beneficial communication (Themistocleous et al., .2.009).
The therapeutic relationship will ensure that a connection exists between health care professional and individual leading to the development of a rapport (Kelley et al., 2014). Through this relationship, one will focus on the meeting the needs of the individual rather than their own personal needs. In this relationship, the health professional is required to share their skills and knowledge and foresee that support and comfort are offered to the individual (O'Toole, 2012). This will see the development of a collaborative partnership that is family or individual centered between parties involved whereby the contribution of each party is important if the outcomes are to be appropriate and satisfactory.
Health professionals are supposed to provide a family or client centered practice whose foundation depends on the creation of mutual understanding and therapeutic relationships. So as to achieve this, the professionals should be ready to make verbal introductions and provide necessary information. Most people overlook the importance making introductions. For health professional, this is crucial for it will help in developing reliability and trustworthiness (O'Toole, 2012). Through this, the individual listening will have the ability to judge whether they can trust the appropriate health professional and invest in any more future interactions. In the end, this simple introduction will lead to the establishment of mutual understanding between the listener and the speaker. During the opening, the health professional should introduce oneself, their role and the unfamiliar environment
In a health professional's typical working day, he/she provides information to different people who can either be in written or verbal form aimed at explaining, instructing or informational purposes (O'Toole, 2012). Through relaying instructions, the health professional will provide different ways that certain tasks will become completed. However, instructions are bound to raise questions, and the professionals must be ready to provide answers to ensure that the family/person understands the information. From this, it is evident that the provision of information is a two-way procedure, requiring mutual understanding from parties involved (Themistocleous et al., 2009). The preparation of the listener is essential for the professional before presenting information. Through this, the individual relaxes, and, the health professional will have ensured that he/she listens to and focuses on the information being passed on. When presenting the information, it should be based on the language, physical, cognitive and emotional needs of the individual and must be done in a clear and concise manner. A person who is not entirely well or has something bothering them will not fully get the message which distorts the communication process. In order to ensure that one fully understand the information, the health care professional should make sure that the information is organized, the health professional should make sure that he/she begins with points that stimulate the most interest and move to those with little impact.
It is the duty of a health professional to gather information which they will later use in to offer patient care and in other important aspects of their profession. Thus, the most common method through which information is gathered is through interviews which can be formal or informal. The interviewing process is a mode of communication between the profession and the individual. In order to gather useful information, the interview process must be efficient and effective (O'Toole, 2012). The most common tool used by the professionals are questions. It will assist them to develop rapport and trust which are essential for communication. The professional can choose to use closed or open-ended questions depending on the nature of information needed. Through these questions by the health professional, an elaboration and exploration of new ideas will be enabled due to significant supplementary information being provided. In order for the communication process to be effective between the health professional and individual, the former must provide information that is comforting rather than discouraging. The health professional might be aware of the effects of the conditions the individual is suffering from which the latter might not know. As such, the professional should ensure that they comfort, empower and encourage the person(s) so that they can continue with their life.
The attitudes and beliefs from people who seek help from health professionals at times hinder the communication process. This might bring about confrontations between the health professionals and the person(s) this affecting the patient outcomes. However, the professionals can engage in sensitive confrontations which will bring about new perspectives, behaviors, attitudes and, beliefs in the individuals leading to a much-improved communication process. However, it is only health professional who have an experience can confront the attitudes and beliefs of the person(s). Inexperienced professionals should consult those who are experienced and develop a therapeutic relationship with their patients before confronting them (O'Toole, 2012).
Effective communication requires the health professionals to fully have an understanding of the effects that the aspects of self, person, and the environment affect the results during interactions. Through reflection, an individual will have the ability to understand what the transformation of their thoughts and actions have on the results of their practice. Through reflection, the professionals have self-knowledge skills for it is the bridge between practice and theory. It is also what helps them developed self-awareness which allows them to understand self and others. It will assist them in the identification of the unconscious processes during communication and their negative impacts on the process. However, for one to have reflection, it requires that for the person to be fully committed and an allocation of consistent time that will assist them in the thinking and honest contemplation of any undesirable consequences of a communication interaction. The health professionals should also be aware of when humor is needed in the communication and their personal barriers towards the identification, acceptance, and resolution of uncomfortable emotions. Having such knowledge in place will, in the long run, be used in the promotion of an effective communication and positive outcomes for the person(s). It is an indication that all health professionals should have a reflective practice that will ensure the communication is effective thus competent and quality care is provided.
For any health professional, effective listening is a fundamental factor that must be considered during communication (Jahromi et al., 2016). The development of perfect listening skills requires practice and attention. Appropriate non-verbal cues indicate that an individual is an excellent listener. Through having good listening skills, it shows that the health professional is not just trustworthy; rather, he/she has respect and empathy. It will thus help them in building therapeutic relationships through which the promotion of individual or person centered goals become practiced (Kelley et al., 2014). Despite all this, there are a lot of barriers toward effective listening of which health professional smuts become fully aware. These are made up of external and internal factors. This will assist them in coming up with strategies that will allow them to limit their effects when listening to people who need their help. However, for an effective health professional listener, he/she should also focus on the internal factors of their emotions before listening. Any audience who has not fully prepared their psychology will not listen for their thoughts are preoccupied thus they may end up distorting the message. As such, for health care professionals, the principle of SAFETY will ensure that they understand the important factors to becoming considered before listening (O’Toole, 2012).
Prejudice, biases and other forms of judgment are known to affect the communication process in most cases; this is due to the fact that the results of such will be misunderstandings and conflicts between involved parties. It is unnecessary for health professionals to engage in such factors (O'Toole, 2012). Most of these factors are brought about by limited information or misinformed assumptions. For a stereotypical health professional, he/she will end up reducing an individual into something they are should not be leading to unpleasant results. In most cases, for a person(s) who has been involved in some form of stereotype, will end up generalization that all health professionals are the same. This is an indication that it is the duty of a health care professional to ensure that they do not communicate in a manner that is stereotypical. A health professional should, therefore, have the following qualities; open, humble, honest, self-aware, reflective, caring, respectful and supportive. It, therefore, means that health professionals should be ready to accept and understand all those people who are around them irrespective of their differences. They should regularly have an evaluation of their sets of beliefs, attitudes and, opinions so that they do not end up being bias (O'Toole, 2012).
From a health professional's perspective, a person(s) includes the individuals seeking help and other various staff members who assist in assisting the individual and other employees in a health care facility. The contribution of all these people(s) is important to the health professional. However, during communication, it is important for a health professional to identify this group and use respect when addressing each of them. The use of names can help in the development of respect for it has a particular meaning and is used for their identification. It is essential for a health professional to ask the name of the individual during communication will lead to the development of therapeutic affiliations and respect (Vertino, 2014). The keeping of information confidential during communication is important and is another means of showing respect. In order to ensure that the communication process is efficient, a health professional should make sure that they identify the physical, sexual, cognitive, social, spiritual and emotional aspects of the person. In the emotional determination, the health professional should undergo a validation process that will help them in identifying the non-verbal communication emotional cues.
Health professionals should have empathy in that they should have the ability to not only understand the emotional needs of their patients but rather, separate themselves from their prejudices and values (O’Toole, 2012). This is an indication that the communication with an individual should be non-judgmental. They should listen patiently and reflect on the information they get so as to respond to it with empathy. This expression can be through verbal and or non-verbal communication. The health professionals should not show any feelings of sympathy with the person.it are because this will end up placing much emphasis on the former and not meet the needs and wants of the person.
Another non-verbal means of communication is touch. However, it should not be forced, in case it is not part of the health professional’s communication style (O’Toole, 2012). The person(s) at times find it hard to communicate through touch, nevertheless, in case a rapport is created, a gentle touch, hand squeeze or shoulder part is applicable. The health professionals should, on the contrary, be aware of the fact that different cultures have different norms in relation to touch as a communication style. In some, contact can be viewed sexual harassment thus it is important for the professionals to become aware of such norms so as to avoid using this communication style inappropriately.
A health professional may come into contact with different environments as they perform their day to day activities. These conditions may arise from the spiritual, social, sexual, emotional and physical settings of the professionals, the person(s) of health services being provided. This is an indication that, the healthcare professionals should overcome any negative or personal responses within these environments that may hinder their communication process. It is only through successfully meeting the demands of each individual environment will the outcomes of their practice yield positive results.
Communication is an important tool when it comes to the health practice (Kourkouta and Papathanasiou, 2014). It is only through effective communication will positive outcomes become realized for the person(s). It is the duty of health care professionals to ensure that they have in place a communication line that has not adverse effects that might hinder the practice. Factors such as ineffective listening, prejudice, biases, and negative judgments can affect the communication process. However, by having self-awareness, self-knowledge and, one being aware of the different environments, the health care professionals will have an active communication process.
References
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