Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/683043
30 PATIENT SAFETY The Chronic Problem of Communication: Why It's a Patient Safety Issue and How Hospitals Can Address It By Kelly Gooch E ffective communication at hospitals and health systems contributes to the development and sustainability of a culture of safety. Yet, miscommunication remains a consistent and pervasive problem. A CRICO Strategies study indicated com- munication failures were linked to 1,744 patient deaths in five years and $1.7 billion in malpractice costs. Additionally, the CDC estimates that on any given day, 1 in 25 patients have an infection that they picked up in the hospital. Further, a study from the University of California, San Francisco, found more than a quarter of hospital readmissions could be avoided with better communication among healthcare teams and between providers and patients. Why is communication a problem? Healthcare professionals, for the most part, know how to be effective communicators, collaborative leaders and team players. So why does communication remain a per- sistent problem? According to Beth Boynton, RN, an or- ganizational development consultant and author of "Successful Nurse Communica- tion: Safe Care, Healthy Workplaces & Re- warding Careers", and Martie Moore, RN, former CNO of Portland, Oregon-based Providence St. Vincent Medical Center and current CNO of Medline Industries, there are multiple reasons. e main reason, says Ms. Boynton, is because communication affects every aspect of healthcare. "Our teamwork, leadership, and workplace cultures are all impacted and communication failures can be linked to all of our big problems, like sentinel events, workforce harm, poor patient experience or wasted resources," she says. "We tend to see these problems as separate issues, but they have common underlying dynamics involv- ing our interactions." Second, it is much more complex than people realize. Communication is really about behavior, which is notoriously difficult to change. In the workplace this includes individual behavior and organizational behavior. And various factors can be added to this mix, such as educational differences, skill level, ethnicity, language, personality and past experiences, both personal and professional. For instance, an individual who grew up learning that throwing a tantrum, pouting and withholding information was a way of effective communication may bring aspects of those behaviors into the work- place, Ms. Moore explains. Third, helping people master communi- cation skills requires a different approach than traditional clinical training models where healthcare professionals learn from Consumer Reports Ranks Hospitals on C-Sections, Finds 60% Miss National Mark By Emily Rappleye T here is incredible variation in hospital caesarean section rates — so much so that a Consumer Reports investigation finds that the single biggest variable that influences a woman's chance of having a C-section is which hospital she chooses to deliver her baby. In fact, after examining C-section rates of more than 1,200 U.S. hospitals, Consumer Reports found almost six in 10 hospitals exceed the national target C-section rate. "Our investigation reveals that most U.S. hospitals have failed to come close to reaching what we consider to be attainable benchmarks," Doris Peter, PhD, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, said in a statement. The group published rates for all hospitals that make the information available. Here are the main findings from the investigation. 1. Roughly one in six hospitals investigated by the con- sumer group had C-section rates above 33.3 percent. This is far above the national target of 23.9 percent, and the cutoff established by Consumer Reports for its worst score. 2. Only about one in eight had rates of 18.4 percent or lower. 3. Variation in C-section rates is extremely pronounced. C-section rates for low-risk deliveries range from 11 per- cent at some hospitals to 53 percent at others. Variation even exists within the same communities. 4. Variation also varies by region. Consumer Reports found higher rates in the Northeast and South and lower rates in the West and Midwest. 5. Mississippi, Kentucky, Florida and Washington D.C., have among the highest C-section rates, all above 30 percent. 6. Conversely, South Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico and North Dakota have the lowest rates, all below 18.5 percent. 7. Many hospitals do not release C-section rates. Con- sumer Reports notes that 24 of these hospitals that do not share C-section rates have a high volume of deliveries of more than 5,000 births annually. n