FPX 4010 Assessment 4

Stakeholder’s Presentation

Introduction

Understanding and achieving efficient communication between the staff and patients in emergency rooms is critical in the delivery of quality and safe care. Effective communication can be interrupted by various barriers such as; this may result in medication errors, delays in patients’ treatment and potential harm to the patients. The following presentation outlines an evidence-based interdisciplinary intervention strategy for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of communication in emergency rooms and decreasing medical mistakes. The plan includes the main stakeholders in care delivery, including nurses, physicians, and pharmacists to enhance the existing communication. Thus, this plan aims at establishing safety culture in the ER settings through structured communication tools and training sessions (Ho, Gift, & Alexander, 2021). The end vision is to make the flow of information as smooth as possible to enhance patient care and eliminate mistakes.

Organizational Issue

Mishaps in communication in emergency centers are a crucial organizational problem that affects patients’ safety and care. Since emergency care is delivered in an environment that is characterized by high stress and work pace, communication is central to timely decision making as well as sharing information. Nonetheless, it has been established that communication breakdown is among the major contributors to medical errors in these environments (Fainter, 1991). These mistakes can be caused by such factors as staffing shortage, high patient turnover, and the participation of several healthcare providers with dissimilar communication patterns and concerns.

Specifically, medication errors, diagnostic delays, and treatment inaccuracies are sometimes attributed to misunderstandings within the team. Ho, Gift, & Alexander (2021) highlighted the impact of structured clinical handover protocols on communication and patient satisfaction, further emphasizing the importance of addressing communication breakdowns. It is thus imperative to address these communication problems not only for the sake of patient safety but also for the improvement of care delivery and providers’ satisfaction.

Thus, it is necessary to prevent these risks and use an interdisciplinary approach that promotes open, clear, and structured communication in healthcare facilities. This plan shall help in encouraging a more integrated team work environment and therefore improve on the quality of services to the patients as well as minimize on cases of errors.

Significance of the Issue

It is important that communication between staff in ERs is efficient and clear so as to enhance the safety of patients and the quality of care. Organization is essential in the management of patient care tasks and especially in conditions that involve high working pressure such as the emergency department. According to the study, communication challenges in ERs are associated with negative patient outcomes including wrong diagnosis, wrong medication and delayed treatment (Tai & Chang, 2023). These challenges are made worse by the lack of clear guidelines on communication structures, something that leaves many a healthcare provider in a dilemma on how best to pass critical information to their counterparts in other facilities. For example, Goldstein and Marsh (2017) noted on the possible impact of communication failure as a cause of adverse events in emergency care organizations. These breakdowns not only endanger the lives of patients but also increase the expenses of the healthcare sector since patients might need more time in hospitals to undergo other treatments because of the errors made. It is therefore important to tackle communication challenges in ERs in order to increase the patient’s survival rate and general wellness. Many documented cases show that healthcare organizations must learn and adopt good communication strategies backed up by good protocols, to avoid adverse incidents affecting patient care (McSherry et al. , 2019).

Evidence-Based Interdisciplinary Plan

In this case, it requires an evidence-based interdisciplinary approach to effectively solve the challenges of communication in the ERs. This plan includes various interventions focused on the improvement of communication, decrease of mistakes, and increase of patients’ quality. Firstly, the use of communication structures like the SBAR model (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) is critical to the provision of well-coordinated and high quality communication (Ho et al. , 2021). Due to its comprehensiveness and ease of use, the SBAR framework is effective in the context of the ER environment. Secondly, the interdisciplinary team should have routine team conferences to guarantee that all the team members understand each other, and they can discuss the patient’s cases and procedures to improve teamwork (Lee & McGregor, 2016). Thirdly, the use of technology in the delivery of care can improve on the communication by the use of electronic health records and integration of communication system in that in helps the care team to have an easy access to the patients records and hence minimizes chances of loss or ineffective communication (Overton, 2022). Fourthly, there is a need to rotate ER staff on the CCU and CVU to enhance interdepartmental communication, and provide for training on communication skills, teamwork, conflict resolution and handover communication to all the ER staff to reduce errors (Andreatta & Marzano, 2012). Lastly, the implementation of a whistleblowing mechanism that enables the staff to report the communication concerns and recommend appropriate changes with no repercussions can be crucial for the enhancement of the communication strategies and the pertinence of the used tactics (Al-Worafi, 2023). The application of these strategies is essential to create effective, safe, and patient-centered ERs within healthcare organizations, which would enhance the quality of patient care, satisfaction of employees, and their level of burnout (Victoroff, 2019).

Stakeholders Involved in the Implementation

Another aspect of emergency room communication is the enhancement of the communication system through interdisciplinary plan which requires the following stakeholders. These are the healthcare practitioners, hospital managers, IT specialists, and patients. This is due to the fact that physicians, nurses and other allied health workers are the main implementers of new communication techniques and technologies in healthcare systems (Schiavo, 2013). This implies that these professionals should receive proper training and should be encouraged to use standard and appropriate communication tools and technologies. It is the role of the leaders in the hospital to ensure that the resources needed for the support of the sustainably and development of the communication improvement plans are provided (Austin, 2023). IT staff plays a crucial role in the application and management of EHRs and other communication technology to make them efficient for sharing real time information among the healthcare providers (Lagendijk & Stegwee, n. d. ). Another set of stakeholders include patients and their families since they are the beneficiaries of the healthcare services. The patient’s engagement in the communication process like the bedside handover and patient portal increases the patients’ satisfaction and the level of patient-centered care (Fainter, 1991). It is very useful to receive their feedback on communication practices for further improvement. With such stakeholders involved, implementation of the interdisciplinary plan is made easier since obstacles to communication and mistakes are eliminated, hence improving patients’ status in emergency rooms.

Implementation Plan

The communication improvement plan for emergency rooms is not just a simple process but requires a step by step approach. The first process is the formation of a qualified multi-disciplinary team which includes the members from medical field, IT department and other officials (Andreatta & Marzano, 2012). A needs assessment is then performed to determine the existing communication requirements and possibilities, which may include surveys, focus groups, or direct observations in the context of the emergency department (Iannone, 2015). From the paper findings, the team defines specific targets and aims that will enable the organization to tackle the problems defined above. Therefore, the plan entails the adoption of well-coordinated forms of communication and organizational communication formats like the SBAR and electronic health record systems for the sharing of real-time information (Overton, 2022). These tools are trained to be used by the staff and more training sessions are planned to keep the competency rate high (Physician, 2014).
 The new strategies of communication are first tested in a controlled setting within the emergency room to determine their efficiency. Any change that needs to be made is done based on the results of the pilot phase before it is implemented fully. This cyclical approach of evaluation helps to identify problems as soon as possible, thereby increasing the chances of successful implementation. Since the project is a large scale one, assessment and monitoring are part of the implementation plan throughout the project. It is possible to use feedback meetings, KPIs, and incident reports to assess the efficiency of the proposed strategy (Tai & Chang, 2023). Changes to the communication plan are done according to the feedback given and the need to maintain relevance and efficiency. Through this kind of approach, the implementation plan seeks to achieve its goals of increasing communication, decreasing errors, and increasing the quality of the experience of the patients in the emergency room.

Change Theory and Leadership Strategy

It is only possible to create significant changes in the communication improvement of the emergency room if there is a strong change theory and leadership strategy. Due to the scale of this undertaking, it is possible to use Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model to facilitate the process (Kotter, 1996). This model comprises of processes like making the issue seem urgent, getting the right assembly of people and communicating the change vision. Firstly, it is necessary to increase the concern about the existing problems with communication in emergency departments to ensure the staff’s engagement in the changes (Andreatta & Marzano, 2012).

 Therefore, the change initiative requires the support of key stakeholders such as healthcare workers, managers, and IT professionals (Tai & Chang, 2023). This coalition will clarify and communicate the changes to the processes of communication and the expected effects, in terms of the organizational objectives. It is crucial to communicate the vision to all the staff since they will be needed in the change process (Al-Worafi, 2023).

 The main leadership characteristic is the ability to initiate and maintain change in the organization (Victoroff, 2019). Managers or leaders must hear the staff’s complaints and ideas and respond to them accordingly and continuously throughout the process of change. Also, to avoid resistance to change, there is need to train the staff and provide them with the necessary tools (Buonocore, 2006). Hence, it will promote the right culture to embrace small successes in enhancing communication and therefore promote overall success (Ho et al. , 2021).

 Combining Kotter’s change model with the principles of transformational leadership, the initiative should make changes in emergency rooms and improve the effectiveness of communication on an ongoing basis.

Evaluation of the Plan

It can be stated that the assessment of the impact of the new forms of communication in emergency rooms cannot be limited to one or two indicators and methods only. Measures for evaluation include the number of communication errors in a specific period, the overall patients’ satisfaction rating, the number of adverse events that can be linked to the lack of effective communication. The collection of baseline data is crucial in order to have a starting point with which results will be compared in the future (Tai & Chang, 2023).  

 Periodic assessments will be made to determine if the changes to the communication procedures are being followed correctly and if there are more enhancements that can be made (Fainter, 1991). Questionnaires completed by the staff and the patients will also be useful in giving the subjective assessment of the effects of the changes. Further, monitoring patients’ outcomes like time To heal, and readmission rates will provide information on the clinical effectiveness of the communication enhancement interventions (Schenkel, 2000).

 Since technology is integrated in healthcare especially the EHRs, it becomes easier to track the communication-related events and data for evaluation (Gonzales et al. , 2021). Real-time feedback mechanisms will enable continuous improvement, with stakeholders actively participating in scheduled review meetings to monitor progress and address emerging issues (Management in healthcare: The theory and practice of international human resource management, 2009).

 In this way, the communication improvement plan stays adaptable to the needs of the ER environment because evaluation is cyclical and ongoing.

Challenges and Solutions

There are several difficulties in assessing the efficiency of the improvement of communication in emergency units. Another major issue is the resistance to change from the staff as it can be quite difficult to alter the established norms of the organization. To this, constant training, articulation of the plan’s advantages, and engaging front-line staff in the formulation and execution of the plan are critical (Horak et al. , 2004).  

 The final issue is related to the implementation of technology in clinical practice which may pose the need for extra funding for technological support and personnel development. As much as technology presents difficulties at the onset, it has advantages including better information sharing and communication. Engagement of IT specialists and adequate training can help to overcome the implementation difficulties (Andreatta & Marzano, 2012).  

 Continuing the change and keeping the pace going is always a challenge. These are accountability, feedback mechanisms, communication and leadership. Addressing resistance and maintaining continuity to communication improvement are possible through focusing on the positive outcomes, including the culture of continuous improvement (Kumar, 2022).

Conclusion

In light of the above research outcomes, it can be suggested that communication within the ED is vital in the improvement of patient safety and the quality of care. Recommendations from various stakeholders, the use of evidence-based interdisciplinary plans and integration of technology will assist healthcare facilities to overcome the barriers in communication and minimize errors. These are participation of stakeholders, promoting an appropriate organizational culture, and continuing staff training as part of the implementation process. Thus, by implementing change theories and leadership practices, the healthcare organization can manage the barriers and maintain improvement in the long term. Therefore, constant review and change of strategies aimed at the improvement of communication is crucial to guarantee the optimal addressing of the patients and their outcomes so as to improve the overall health care delivery in emergency conditions.

References

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