Chapter 12: Communication
Katie Baker
Whether communicating with other providers, your supervisors or staff, or patients and their families, professional communication is important for a number of reasons. Providing clear communication helps patients in your care receive the best treatment outcomes for their health concerns. Communication can refer to written messages (emails, letters, text messages, presentation slides), verbal messages (phone calls, video conferences), or in-person communication, such as meetings, presentations, and patient visits.
Clarity is important for the recipients to be able to understand and perform the requested action as well as understanding the information that you are trying to convey. Timely communication is important as well. Ensuring that patients receive timely communication about their care and that providers receiving your referrals are able to follow up in a timely manner and ensure that patient outcomes are the best possible.
Concise communication means that you do not include unneeded information in your message. As someone who is presenting information in a large meeting, you want to be sure that your content is presented in a concise but memorable way. You would not include slides that do not relate to your content.
The presentation of your message is an opportunity for your patients and colleagues to develop respect for your professionalism through your communication skills. Using the proper tone, and appropriate spelling, grammar and punctuation will ensure that your recipients will view you professionally.
Selecting the proper recipient is also an important component of communication. You will need to know who to communicate with on a care team about a patient’s condition in order to provide helpful information for their care to those who can use it to help. In another example, your organization might have a particular chain of command for communication that tells you who to contact for specific concerns (manager first, department director second, then Human Resources) and it is expected that you will follow it.
Communication May Depend on Audience
As a healthcare professional, you will work daily with people in different positions relative to your job. You may communicate with supervisors and other superiors in your organization. You may have the task of training new employees, which will require a strong set of communication and listening skills. You will communicate with providers to whom you are referring patients. You will communicate with patients and their families directly.
While it is common to use a casual tone when speaking to coworkers, it is important that communicating with employees be done in a professional and compassionate way. Workplace communication norms may vary between colleagues and between employees at different levels and it is important to understand the norms for the workplace in which you work. Many people have a more casual and friendly relationship with their supervisors