Health communication that is effective can aid in promoting awareness of dangers in health as well as clarifications providing the vehemence and expertise required to annihilate these risks. It is a guide for various individuals to get support and assistance from other people experiencing the same problems and promote or effect change attitude or mindset. Communication in health care can result in reducing the demand for health practices that are inefficient and expand the request for appropriate as well as suitable health services because of an increase in awareness. Such communications enable people to make right and informed decisions, for instance in choosing efficient Medicaid and Medicare, treatments together with health plans. Health communication can be used to convince public plan at the community level. It can also be utilized n campaigning for programs and policies of health care, enhancing how Medicare and Medicaid are delivered, advocate for societal norms that are advantageous to the health of individuals and champion for positive change in the socio-economical and physical environments.
It is imperative for healthcare professionals to have a good relationship with their patients in health care. The five important concepts regarding efficient and effective strategic plan for organization communication dissemination following Shannon-weaver communication model which is commonly used in organizations of health care involve the sender, message, recipient of the message or receiver, decoding as well as feedback. For example, the sender starts a conversation or discussion by arranging a message that is simple that can be easily comprehended by the receiver (Andrew Cooper, 2015). The communicated message can be non-verbal, verbal or a combination of both analyzing the message or the sender’s intention.
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In effective communication, it crucial for the message to have clarity and to the point. It should also be communicated in a way that can be easily understood by the receiver to avoid cases of inappropriate feedback. In healthcare, a message is vital in developing a relationship with a patient since it is a form of passing information to them. The patients of healthcare are the receiver, and they should be in a position to understand the message and give their feedback appropriately as needed by the sender. The results of diagnosis can be the message, lab results, information on treatments as well as explanations for drugs thus should be written in a manner that the patients will apprehend and decode the message. Feedback may take the form of questions or more inquiries about the communicated message. Feedback is often affected by the context of the organization. For example, it can be impacted by distractions in the environment.
Utilizing these communication elements is imperative primarily for patients to comprehend. Health care professionals should not utilize medical terms but instead, use layman terms to describe diagnosis as well as treatments to patients. This makes the patient be at ease, and it is easy for them to give their response. Active individual health care communication comes from the medical practitioners to each other and their patients.
Challenges in communication are grouped into two; environmental and personal barriers. Environmental barriers include climate, noise, space, time, and place. In health care, patients might be competing for time and attention to be attended to therefore because of the noise and face to face spoken communications, emails or texts being written have a good chance of being distorted. Such communications should be given time in an orderly way for the patients to receive effective treatment and for information to be passed across accordingly. Personal hindrances of communication include education level, values and beliefs, bias, and sender’s experience. Communication carried out by nurses who use hard terminologies that patients can rarely understand influences the communication results. Patients should be given information following their level of comprehension, and all medical procedures should be explained to avoid misunderstanding. Therefore, it is paramount for health care facilities to train and equip their staff with effective communication skills to ensure that there is a prosperous process of communication within the organization (Chou, 2008). Another communication barrier includes poor listening skills. Health professionals or patients may lack good listening skills hence it will be hard for the message to be understood. Doctors and nurses should practice their listening skills to understand the message communicated by the patients.
In a nutshell, effective and efficient communication is important in the strategic and planning process of every organization. To improve personal and public health, healthcare organizations should see that effective communication is a critical element that needs perfection. It also enables individuals to make wise and informed decisions regarding their health when it comes to choosing treatments concerning Medicaid and Medicare.
References
Andrew Cooper, J. G. (2015). Exploring the role of commuication in quality improvement: A case study of the 1000 lives campaign in NHS Wales. Journal of Communication in Healthcare , 76-84.
Chou, B. N. (2008). Priorities and Strategies for the Implementation of Integrated Informatics and Communications Technology to Improve Evidence-Based Practice. Journal of General Medicine , 50-57.
