Impact of Ineffective Communication in Healthcare

Introduction

Communication is the key to succeeding at many human tasks, especially when a task requires more than one person to finish.

In everyday life, we use communication to get things done, whether it is to tell someone about what they have to do or to just fill up the social need all humans have. However, communication is not a perfect system. There are often times when communication is hindered by certain factors outside humans’ control. There are also times when the process of communication is affected, and the overall message is altered or becomes incorrect, especially in communication healthcare.

Why Communication Is Important In Healthcare?

In the healthcare industry, you can see how big the difference is in effective communication vs ineffective communication. Good communication is a key to saving many lives on the field. It is the primary lifeline within the industry to help facilitate teamwork and cohesiveness among the workers.

Still, like all communication performed by humans, it is not perfect. There are still instances in the industry where communication between workers goes horribly wrong, leading to ineffective communication and disastrous consequences.

Let’s see the huge impact ineffective communication has on the healthcare industry.

Poor Communication between Physicians and Nurses

There is often some form of communication performed between a nurse and a physician in a hospital setting. Most of the communication being done here is often discussing different information about a patient they are both taking care of simultaneously. Sometimes the communication cannot be transferred correctly to the other party, leading to communication failures. 

 When comparing effective communication vs ineffective communication between nurses and physicians, ineffective communication of important information about a patient’s symptoms or condition is often observed. Oftentimes a physician or a nurse rely on each other to relay the correct information about a patient in hopes of finding a treatment or cure for the patient’s condition. If these issues remain unresolved, they can lead to incorrect decisions being made about treatment and delays to treatment when the severity of the patient’s condition is not understood properly.

Ineffective communication has other consequences when it comes to the hospital setting. During their stay at a hospital, patients may experience delays in their stay due to many factors. One of those big factors often tends to be the result of poor communication between the staff. 

These communication issues happen for a multitude of reasons. One big reason could be the impact of work overload within the healthcare environment, and ineffective policies within the work area in a hospital or any other healthcare worker setting. Language difficulty could be another reason for these miscommunications to keep on happening. Having poor communication skills can be yet another reason why these errors occur. That is why there are top healthcare apps to help improve communication between healthcare workers.

Ineffective Communication between Physicians and Patients

Effective communication between the physician or nurse and the patient is very important. It is essential, especially for the patient when they have a medical problem or even an emergency that needs to be attended to. They need to be able to read the patient’s verbal language as well as body language to be able to help them as best as they can, especially when it comes to the diagnosis of a patient’s illness. This is the reason why communication is important in healthcare.

Ineffective communication between physicians or nurses with patients can lead to disastrous consequences for patients. It can cause them to have poor outcomes in their health if not treated properly, or they need to be brought back into the hospital. Ineffective communication can also lead to improper treatment or mistakes when treating a patient, which can lead to malpractice accusations.

There is also a mention that ineffective communication between all parties overall lowers the satisfaction of patients and staff alike.

Conclusion

Knowing the difference between effective communication vs ineffective communication is important for many aspects of life. Most of all, it is important in healthcare workers’ workplaces. When the aspect of communication healthcare is compromised or fail altogether, it creates disastrous consequences for the patients and the medical professionals involved.

Medical professionals can take care of their patients well in the long run, that is why communication is important in healthcare.

What other harmful effects of ineffective communication are out there?

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