Importance Of Good Communication In Healthcare Settings

According to the recent evidenced-based research results, there is really a strong and powerful relationship between having a good communication in healthcare team and patient’s satisfaction, safety and fast recovery. An expert says that “no matter how knowledgeable a clinician might be, if he or she is not able to open good communication with the patient, he or she may be of no help.” It simply means that when doctors, nurses and other member of the healthcare team can listen and provide better explanation to patients, they can prevent unwanted emergency situations such as emergency coding, wrong medication and severe health complication to patients. Furthermore, good communication among the healthcare team promotes smooth and positive working connection.

Since there are lot of cases reported about miscommunications among nurses, doctors and other team members, most hospital owners require them to have team buildings and seminars related to importance of good communication to minimize chaos and complain from patients about dissatisfaction, malpractice and ineffective healthcare team communication. Also, they are being reminded that even if they are performing well, they still need to learn more and improve their communication skills.

According to studies, patients suffer the most when the medical and healthcare team fails to communicate well. If all members of the healthcare team have good communication, they can achieve positive patient outcome and prevent situations such as:

  • Malpractice and other human errors
  • Sudden death of a patient
  • Severe complication of patient’s disease
  • Chaos within the healthcare team

Listening is still part of communication. The healthcare team must listen well to the primary complains of their patient in order to provide better diagnosis and care to them. Once they have all the important information, they should collaborate with each other to deliver the best medical care to the patient.

Healthcare Problems

Healthcare has been a major issue for most countries including the USA. Though the issues are not as huge as compared to poor countries, it still has an effect on the system and the health of the citizens in general. Amongst the major problems in relation to healthcare are the cost and the accessibility to health insurance. There are many other issues aside from this, but we will be focusing first on this issue.

The cost of healthcare is not as affordable as compared to other countries that are subsidized, most if not all, the expenses for any health related concerns. There are many reasons why the cost is high. Healthcare professionals, medicine manufacturers and suppliers and service providers will charge a cost or fee that will give them a reasonable profit or else they will invest in other areas.

Doctors charge excessive rates just to reimburse the expenses they used with their education. It’s virtually impossible to get a medical education in America without winding up with many years of debt.  Another explanation would be that the US is really a litigious society, and also to safeguard themselves, doctors need to pay high malpractice insurance rates.

In knowing the explanation of high medical costs, you have to consider insurance in addition to time and materials. Private health insurance companies don’t run a business to facilitate healthcare, but, like drug companies, to create profits for their employees and investors. Just to create a profit, they often deny coverage to those who have problems with their insurance that may result in claims. They even deny legitimate claims by making the procedure for compensation difficult. They offer guidelines which have high insurance deductibles and minimal insurance coverage.

Healthcare is a business and will require financials in order to function. Without it, services will surely be affected with reduced quality and efficiency. To be able to deal with this problem the government must be able to find a way to reduce the cost of education for doctors, support researches that will lead to affordable and more efficient medicine and services, and create a system that will benefit both the providers and the people.

Healthcare Problems

Charles Krauthammer provided us all advice when he recommended that we should neglect what President Obama says and focus on what he does. The reality is that very little that Obama peddled to America when he was attempting to gain support for the Affordable Healthcare Act was true. What is going to happen to many People in America in the next months and years is what individuals should be focused on. We might want to consider some of the following, because it may affect us all, one way or the other.

As many as one-half of all American doctors may refuse to join the healthcare transactions. Without doctors, it will be a very hard to make the transactions work and guarantees long waits to see a doctor.

The White House and surrogates say a few individuals will lose their healthcare coverage. The estimate of a 5% cancellation rate would signify about 16 million individuals, or about one-half the number of the uninsured that was originally used to rationalize this problem. Each cancellation provides with it a tale and for some, a complete loss of insurance plan and lack of ability to get treatment. And perhaps as many as a third of the population could be affected once the employer mandates kick in.

The government gets to decide on the details of healthcare coverage each resident will be needed to buy. An older woman may be needed to buy pre-natal coverage; a younger man may be needed to buy coverage for geriatric care. The Affordable Care Act does not differentiate between the needs of the younger and the old, or the sex of the policy-holder, or the needs and wishes of the individual. It is an all-encompassing, like it program, because there is no leaving it.

In order for the program to work, younger, healthy individuals must buy the government required insurance policy. Since most adolescents have no medical problems and the penalty enforced is much less expensive than buying the actual policy, many will no doubt opt to pay the penalty. The fact that previous medical conditions cannot remove one from buying insurance plan makes the choice to pay the penalty and wait until the need for healthcare insurance coverage occurs, a no-brainer.