Introduction
In considering any health care organization, an effective clinical practice involves several situations in which critical information must be communicated to the relevant parties with a high degree of accuracy. Where there is no carrying out of effective communication by the professionals in the health care sector, this might bring in so many dangers to the patients. This might be due to the absence of critical information, not interpreting the information in the right way, or even overlooking the changes in status among other reasons (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 2005). In the absence of effective communication, medical errors can come about and these errors can be so serious to a point of bringing about death among the patients.
Group and Team communication
Health care professionals are supposed to assume contemporary roles and work together. They should share responsibility in the effort to solve the arising problems and coming up with decisions in regard to developing better plans for the patients. The working together of the health care workers who include the nurses, physicians, and caregivers among others boosts awareness among the members of the team of one another’s kind of capabilities and knowledge and this brings about ongoing development in the process of decision making.
In the health care organization, the patient realizes that communication is much easier with the team that works together and not with a team of the health care professionals that do not carry out their activities in a manner that does not facilitate working together.
It is of great significance to emphasize that in developing a team collaboration situation there may be encountering several obstacles that have to be overcome. Such obstacles may include need for additional time, perceived loss of independence, absence of trust and confidence in the decisions carried out by other people, perceptions that do not march, inefficiency in awareness of the one who provides knowledge and skills held by others from the outside professions and disciplines (Catlett and Halper, 1992). But on the other hand, these hurdles can be gotten over in a situation where there is a common attitude and shared trust as well as shared respect.
Cultural and gender differences
Cultural differences are sometimes seen to impact negatively on the health care professionals as well as the patients together with their families. Taking the case in the United States of America regarding the issue of cultural differences, this is seen to be among the big barriers to effective communication. This country has the most diverse cultures and ethnic groups. Most of the health care workers in this country have varied cultural backgrounds. This implies that these cultural differences can bring about problems in the manner in which these workers communicate.
For instance, there are those cultures in which people do not openly oppose those opinions they think they do not agree with them. Consequently, this brings about a situation whereby such professionals as nurses who embrace such kinds of cultures do not air out their views whenever they see things not going the right way. The nurses may communicate their concerns in a manner that might not be direct. The cultural differences can as well bring about hindering communication that might not be verbal. For instance, among the cultures, some attach particular meanings to eye contact, touch, particular expressions on the face among other body language.
Another hindering factor in the process of communication among the health care workers and even patients is the issue of gender differences. In this industry, the nurses are mostly female and the physicians are mostly of the male gender. The males and females have different communication styles, values, and expectations (Gray, 1992). This might bring about a lack of effective communication that might result in offering services to the patients in an appropriate manner.
The problems arising from the cultural differences together with the gender differences can be solved by educating the concerned parties on the best way to handle these to realize effective communication.
Conclusion
An efficient and effective clinical practice is not supposed to concentrate on just the issues concerning the technological system but it should as well concentrate on the issue of the human factor. As it has already been considered, effective communication boosts collaboration and plays a major role in doing away with the errors that might arise. It is of great significance for any particular health care organization to examine potential setups that can bring about ineffectiveness in communication and be keen enough to come up with programs that can encourage collaboration. By the health care organizations successfully dealing with this issue, there will be a realization of improved clinical practice.
In summary, having effective communication in any health care organization will yield positive results. These results may include improvement in the flow of information, improvement in safety, higher level of contentment among the patients together with their families, the realization of more effective interventions, and satisfaction among the employees (Fuss, Bryan, and Hitchings, 1998).
Reference
Catlett, C. and Halper, A. (1992). Team approaches: working together to improve quality. In: Frattalie C., editor. Quality improvement digest. Rockville, MD: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Fuss MA, Bryan YE and Hitchings KS. (1998). Measuring critical care redesign: impact on satisfaction and quality. Nurs Admin Quart.
Gray, J. (19992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. New York: Harper Collins.
Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (2005). The Joint Commission guide to improving staff communication. Oakbrook Terrace, IL: Joint Commission Resources.