As many employees in the healthcare field travel to various facilities and make home visits, real-time communication can be especially challenging. Healthcare workers don’t regularly check email as most of their time is spent on the go, working with patients, so it’s difficult to stay current on company updates and important announcements. But effective communication in healthcare is more important than ever. The impact of ineffective communication in healthcare settings not only has the ability to affect the patient experience, but also can contribute to a financial loss at various facilities and negatively affect workplace morale. The effort to improve communication is critical to reduce miscommunication and alleviate stress for both healthcare workers and patients. The following are ways to ensure effective communication;
Assess the current method of communication. Before making improvements to the internal communication, there is need to assess your current efforts. It is important to avoid making costly and even potentially fatal mistakes. After assessing the communication, ask for feedback and create an internal communication strategy. Good communication is allowing the staff to have a voice, listen to their feedback, and make appropriate changes.
Streamline communication channels. Working in healthcare, there are protocols one need to follow but when assessment of the current state of communication is done, ensure there are ways put in place to streamline the channels. Communication should be simple but it can quickly become convoluted and complicated. If communication remains confidential some unnecessary confusing and time consuming steps are eliminated.
Encourage mobile collaboration for effective communication between healthcare professionals. Today, pagers remain a mandatory means of communication in many healthcare facilities. While pagers may be an effective way to alert someone to return a call as soon as possible, they’re not always an effective or practical way to conduct a two-way conversation. Encouraging top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer communication via a mobile team communication app.