Communication Opinion Paper
Shawnn Casagrande
June 29, 2015
HCS/320
Monique Williams

Communication is in our everyday life and is important for everyone, but it is especially crucial in the healthcare field. Healthcare professionals must make sure that they are communicating effectively to their patients and colleagues to ensure the quality of care for their patient. If communication does not come across then the medical care the patient needs will not be given due to the lack of communication. Effective communication involves more than understanding the information that is being given. How a person understands and receives a message are two different things therefore understanding feelings, thoughts, wants and needs are crucial in effective communication (Cheesebro, O’connor, & Rios, 2010) The four basic elements in communication are sender, message, channel and receiver. As the sender of the message, they need to make sure they are sending the message appropriately and making sure that the receiver is interpreting the message they are sending in a way that they understand. Ineffective communication can result in the delayed or improper treatment of the patients. Much of the poor results in the healthcare field in the past have been only due to ineffective communication.
Effective communication requires teams and persons having the proper access of the timely information necessary to perform the role properly and effectively. The use of the technical terms and abbreviations to communicate can affect how well the information is being shared and therefore affect the effectiveness of communication. The basic elements of the effective communication that differ from the general rules of healthcare are the 7 C’s, clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete and courteous.
When speaking or writing you need to make sure that your communication is clear and minimize the number of ideas in each sentence so your audience does not get confused. Stick to the point of what you are wanting to communicate and keep it brief. If you get off track on what you are trying to communicate then so will your audience. The correct information needs to be given in order for your audience to get the right information, if you are not giving them the right information then when they are explaining to someone else they will not have the knowledge to give them and therefore the wrong information will be given over and over, making sure that you are studying and rechecking your information over and over will ensure that the information given is correct. This is crucial in the healthcare field. If doctors do not study, read, go to meetings etc. then they may give the wrong information and thus could be crucial to the patients