Internal communication in healthcare is a huge factor in shaping an organization’s culture. How staff members communicate shows the organization’s true core values and determine how employees transfer and receive knowledge.
In the healthcare industry, regulations and processes are constantly evolving. Effective internal communication is essential to ensure that every staff member stays up to speed.
Keep reading to discover a few key benefits of improved internal communication.
Better collaboration and teamwork
Without effective communication, healthcare workers end up making decisions individually instead of as a team. This can be detrimental.
Studies have shown that roughly 85% of workplace errors are the result of communication failures.
On the other hand, good internal communication in healthcare fosters teamwork and collaboration.
Several studies have shown that good communication increases employee engagement and productivity. Effective internal communication ensures that every employee knows their role and responsibilities.
Improved patient care
Depending on the case and the type of healthcare facility, a patient may interact with many different healthcare professionals in the course of their care.
As one nurse handbook points out:
During the course of a four-day hospital stay, a patient may interact with 50 different employees, including physicians, nurses, technicians, and others. Effective clinical practice thus involves many instances where critical information must be accurately communicated. Team collaboration is essential.
When health care professionals are not communicating effectively, patient safety is at risk for several reasons: lack of critical information, misinterpretation of information, unclear orders over the telephone, and overlooked changes in status.
Effective internal communication is an essential part of high-quality patient care.
When employees are communicating well and collaborating, every member of the care team will understand the goal of patient care. They will be able to pick up where the last team member left off and create a seamless, consistent experience for the patient.
Improved compliance with changes
In healthcare, things are constantly changing. Healthcare organizations must constantly review and update policies to account for new industry regulations, updated accreditation requirements, or internal process changes.
When changes come, effective internal communication is key to conveying these changes to employees. Good communication ensures that the changes are implemented quickly and consistently across the organization.
Team communication leads to employee satisfaction
Effective internal communication in healthcare helps employees feel connected to their co-workers and the organization. This sense of connection leads to higher levels of employee satisfaction and engagement.
According to studies by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, “engaged employees are twice as likely to be top performers, miss 20% fewer days of work than their less engaged counterparts, are more supportive of organizational change, and have lower turnover rates.”
Satisfied and engaged employees also improve outcomes. According to a Gallup survey of public companies, organizations with highly engaged employees “outperform their peers by 147% in earnings per share.”
Healthcare organizations are complex. With many different departments, changing staff shifts, and strict industry regulations, it can be difficult to communicate quickly and effectively.
Healthcare professionals have many different methods of communicating with team members and patients.
Verbal
Verbal communication is perhaps the most common and straightforward method. This can involve things such as staff meetings, performance meetings, and other formal conversations.
But verbal communication also includes the sort of informal conversations that occur when employees are on break or passing one another in the hallway.
It’s important for healthcare organizations to take all forms of verbal communication into account when developing a plan for how to improve communication in healthcare.
How employees talk to each other in both formal and informal settings is an important part of workplace culture. And clear, respectful verbal communication is especially crucial in patient interactions.
Written
Communication in healthcare is not always as simple as just calling a meeting or spreading information by word of mouth.
While verbal communication is important, healthcare organizations must produce formal, written records for many aspects of operations.
Written policies and procedures create a basis for effective operations by ensuring employees know what’s expected of them and understand how to perform essential tasks.
Compiling policies in a formalized employee manual will allow employees to easily refer to correct procedures. And of course, patient records and charts are vital for effectively transferring information between staff members caring for the patient.
Healthcare organizations must emphasize the importance of accurately and thoroughly documenting patient files. Accurate records impact everything from medicine dosage to patient billing. Detailed patient charts can reduce the risk of medical errors or liability due to billing mistakes.
Non-verbal
In doctor-patient interactions, how the doctor acts is often more important than what the doctor says.
Things such as facial expressions, body posture, and tone of voice make all the difference in how the patient views the interaction – regardless of what was conveyed verbally.
Non-verbal communication cues are also important in internal communication in healthcare. Employees need to feel accepted and appreciated by their supervisors and co-workers.
Non-verbal cues are a huge part of helping both employees and patients feel comfortable within a healthcare facility.
Even for experienced healthcare workers, good communication skills may not always come easily. Here are some practical ideas for how to improve communication in healthcare.
Practice, practice, practice
Often, the first step in improving internal communication is simply to take a step back and assess the current state of communication.
How do staff members tend to communicate most often? Are there any trends in the type of information or settings where miscommunication happens? How are new regulations and policies communicated?
Organizations should solicit feedback and advice on ways to fix communication issues and improve internal communication overall.
Implementing new methods and patterns of communication will require time and effort, but it will pay off in the end.
Clarity from managers and administrators
Good internal communication starts at the top. When managers and administrators clearly communicate goals and expectations, employees can understand how to work toward those goals.
Effective communication is strategic.
Healthcare leaders should take great care with how they communicate through meetings, emails, memos, and policy manuals.
Software tools can often help with written communications.
Policy management software can allow leaders to collaborate on policies and procedures, and communicate about how to implement changes in the facility.
Use technology to streamline formal communication
Technology tools can help organizations rethink how to improve communication in healthcare.
With policy management software, managers can easily communicate policy updates. They can distribute new policies and procedures to all staff members with just the click of a button, and track electronic signatures to make sure employees read the updates. Policy software also let you store job-critical documents in one central location so employees can access the information they need, when they need it.
Training software can also help ensure that employees understand and retain the information they need. Online training content allows leaders to communicate important information in multiple formats, which can be more effective and affordable than delivering training via a classroom lecture.
If an organization has healthy internal communication, it will naturally flow over into how staff members communicate with and care for patients.
Learn more about policy and procedure management for healthcare facilities like yours.