S. Erin Whitfield

Chapman, Kimberly. (Nov 2009). Improving Communication Among Nurses, Patients, and Physicians. American Journal of Nursing, Volume 109 (Issue 11). Retrieved from http://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/fulltext/2009/improvingcommunicationamongnursespatients

Communication is absolutely essential in a nursing environment. In the aforementioned article, a team at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital decided that they needed to make some changes in the way that they dealt with communication. First, they focused on nurse to patient communication. This process involved the outgoing nurse to hand over the care of a patient to the incoming nurse at the bedside of the patient, introducing the new nurse and reminding the patient of how important his care was. Second, they dealt with nurse to nurse communication. A staff meeting, or 'safety huddle', was implemented at the start of each shirt to alert nurses on particularly challenging patients or new things to be aware of. Lastly, they enhanced physician to patient communication via the nurse. The nurse would accompany the physician to the bedside and the three would discuss the patient's care plan. These changes made a world of difference. The author concluded that small adjustments to communication could make dramatic changes. She also concluded that when communication is more effective the entire hospital is more effective. I rather enjoyed this article. Every sentence validated what we are currently learning in class. I thought it was interesting that the author started out saying that we could apply ideas from other vocations to nursing. If elementary school teachers excel at communication, then we should try to learn from them. The idea of finding lessons in things beyond the walls of a hospital is really neat. I also thought it was important that the author mentioned the team of experts adjusting the plan several