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Showing results for tags 'Communication'.
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Content Article
This blog is part of a series written by Dr Charlie*, taking a closer look at some of the patient safety issues affecting people lives today. In this blog Dr Charlie describes how their homeless friend Robbie* has struggled to access the care and clarification he needed around his liver abscesses. Dr Charlie explains how important it is for healthcare professionals to take into account individual circumstances if they are to provide people with the information and care they need. *not their real name -
Content ArticleOnline reporting tools are a key component of professional accountability programmes as they allow hospital staff to report co-worker unprofessional behaviour. Ethos is a whole-of-hospital professional accountability programme that includes an online messaging system, which has now been implemented across multiple Australian hospitals. This study examined reported unprofessional behaviour that staff indicated created a risk to patient safety. It included 1310 Ethos submissions reporting co-worker unprofessional behaviour between 2017 and 2020 across eight Australian hospitals. The findings indicate that unprofessional behaviour was associated with risks to patient safety. Co-worker reports about unprofessional behaviour have significant value as they can be used by organisations to better understand how unprofessional behaviour can disrupt work practices and lead to risks to patient safety.
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Content ArticleThe new PIER approach will enable the effective management of acute physical deterioration in health and care and will apply to all conditions, clinical settings and specialities. The new PIER approach views deterioration as a whole pathway which is supported by systems rather than only advocating a single strategy for identification. Acute physical deterioration is the rapid worsening of a patient’s condition. It can be identified from changes in physiology, such as respiratory rate, blood pressure or consciousness, or more subtle signs, such as not eating and a patient or their family’s concerns and observations around wellness, mental status or behaviour. Deterioration can occur in any health and care setting and is the common pathway in all emergency admissions, prolonged illnesses and deaths.
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EventuntilIf you did a quality improvement project related to patient care, have you considered publishing the results? Sharing your project can help others learn from and replicate it, and benefit patients far and wide. It isn’t as hard as you might think! The Patient Safety online Master Class Writing Workshop in Quality Improvement Studies teaches the skills you need to turn your QI project into a manuscript. Session 1: Introduction to Writing a QI Study. Learn the typical elements of a published QI study so you can write one yourself. Thursday, August 29, 4–6 p.m. ET Session 2: Roundtable Manuscript Critique and Discussion. Review your manuscript with other participants tohelp revise it for publication. Thursday, October 10, 4–6 p.m. Further information
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Content ArticleDuring the diagnostic process, clinicians may make assumptions, prematurely judge or diagnose patients based on their appearance, their speech or how they are portrayed by other clinicians. Such judgements can be a major source of diagnostic error and are often linked to unconscious cognitive biases - faulty quick-fire thinking patterns that impact clinical reasoning. Patient safety is profoundly influenced by cognitive bias and language, i.e. how information is presented or gathered, and then synthesised by clinicians to form and communicate diagnostic decisions. Here, authors discuss the intricate links between interpersonal communication, cognitive bias, and diagnostic error from a patient's, a linguist's and clinician's perspective. They propose that through patient engagement and applied health communication research, we can enhance our understanding of how the interplay of communication behaviours, biases and errors can impact upon the patient experience and diagnostic error. In doing so, they provide new avenues for collaborative diagnostic error research striving towards healthcare improvements and safer diagnosis.
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Content ArticleEmergency general surgery performed among patients aged over 65 years represents a particularly high-risk population. Transferring emergency surgery patients between hospitals has been linked to higher mortality, but its impact on outcomes in the geriatric population is uncertain. This study in Surgery aimed to explore the effect of transfer between hospitals on postoperative outcomes in older people who have emergency general surgery. The authors concluded that transferring patients between hospitals contributed to overall mortality and morbidity amongst geriatric emergency general surgery patients. They call for further investigation into improved coordination between hospitals, tailored care plans and comprehensive risk assessments, to help improve outcomes for older emergency surgery patients.
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Content ArticleUse of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare is on the rise. Bodies including UK Governments, the National Institute for Health and Care Research and the NHS AI Lab are all investing in developing and deploying the technology. The Patient Information Forum (PIF) is an independent UK membership body for people working in health information and support. Developed in collaboration with PIF’s AI working group, this position statement aims to help members understand the AI landscape and how to manage it.
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Content Article
Taking persistent physical symptoms seriously (15 June 2024)
Patient-Safety-Learning posted an article in Diagnosis
Persistent physical symptoms (PPS) are distressing physical complaints lasting several months or more without a clear cause. They are very common—but complex—and can be overwhelming for patients and healthcare professionals. PPS can have a devastating effect on mental health and cause distress for patients when they are not believed. This Lancet editorial looks at the increasing knowledge we have of the risk factors and mechanisms involved in PPS and what this means for patient care. It looks at recent research studies and models of care designed specifically for dealing with PSS. -
Content Article
In this blog, patient advocate and healthcare communications consultant, Tambre Leighn, summarises her poster, Ask Me! Transforming Patient Communication to Improve Enrolment & Adherence in Clinical Trials and Cancer Care, presented at this year's American Association of Cancer Researchers conference. Tambre discusses how effective communication is essential for ensuring patient safety in clinical trials and cancer care, and why poor communication can lead to negative outcomes. She shares her strategies to improve patient safety through communication. -
Content Article
This is part of our series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people working for patient safety about their role and what motivates them. Magda talks to us about her role as Family Liaison Officer Team Lead, how PSIRF has changed the way her Trust involves patients and families after patient safety incidents and the importance of placing patient and family perspectives at the heart of learning responses. -
Content Article
Learning Disability Week is the third week of June every year. The event, organised by the charity Mencap, is an opportunity to raise awareness about different learning disabilities and challenge some of the barriers people who have learning disabilities face. According to Mencap, a learning disability is a person's reduced intellectual ability, meaning they can face difficulty with everyday activities. People with a learning disability can sometimes need extra support to learn new skills, understand complicated information or interact with other people. It can be particularly challenging for people with learning disabilities and their families when accessing healthcare services. To mark Learning Disability Week, we are sharing 11 resources, blogs and reports from the hub for patients, their families and healthcare professionals on breaking down these barriers. -
Content ArticlePatient advocate and healthcare communications consultant, Tambre Leighn, shares her poster, Ask Me!: Transforming Patient Communication to Improve Enrollment & Adherence in Clinical Trials and Cancer Care, presented at the American Association of Cancer Researchers conference.
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Content Article
Diabetes tech: Do national aspirations and local practice align?
Anonymous posted an article in Diabetes
In this anonymous blog, a person with type 1 diabetes describes their recent experience upgrading their insulin pump, a medical device used to continuously deliver insulin instead of taking multiple daily injections. They describe how communication issues and gaps in staff knowledge led to a significant delay in accessing the pump, which caused them significant stress. They also ask whether recent announcements about increased access to diabetes technology over the next few years will match up to the reality experienced by people with diabetes accessing care at local healthcare organisations. -
Content ArticlePeople who have used health services are often invited to offer their expertise through research, service evaluation, giving patient experience talks or other forms of feedback. This is often referred to as Patient and Public Involvement (PPI). This guidance by Imperial College London and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is intended for healthcare professionals, staff who work in patient experience roles, healthcare organisations, researchers and others who interact with service users and their relatives who are giving insight and feedback through a PPI process. It has evolved from the lead author’s observations when contributing to PPI activities, and the recognition that more needs to be done to create a safe psychological environment to enable people to feel comfortable when contributing and to be involved without harm.
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Content ArticleThe relentless increase in administrative responsibilities, amplified by electronic health record (EHR) systems, has diverted clinician attention from direct patient care, fuelling burnout. In response, large language models (LLMs) are being adopted to streamline clinical and administrative tasks. Notably, Epic is currently leveraging OpenAI's ChatGPT models, including GPT-4, for electronic messaging via online portals. The volume of patient portal messaging has escalated in the past 5–10 years, and general-purpose LLMs are being deployed to manage this burden. Their use in drafting responses to patient messages is one of the earliest applications of LLMs in EHRs. Previous works have evaluated the quality of LLMs responses to biomedical and clinical knowledge questions; however, the ability of LLMs to improve efficiency and reduce cognitive burden has not been established, and the effect of LLMs on clinical decision making is unknown. To begin to bridge this knowledge gap, the authors of this study, published in the Lancet, carried out a proof-of-concept end-user study assessing the effect and safety of LLM-assisted patient messaging.
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Content ArticleThe doctor-patient relationship should be immune from bias, but growing evidence challenges doctors’ objectivity. In this study in Science, the authors analysed vast data from US military emergency departments, where active-duty doctors and patients have military ranks and some patients outrank their assigned doctor. The study found that patients who outranked their doctors enjoyed more clinician effort and better health outcomes because more resources were inequitably invested in their care. The results also showed that White physicians consistently put less effort into caring for Black patients. The authors suggest that power-driven variation in behaviour can harm the most vulnerable populations in health care settings.
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Content ArticleSofia Mettler, MD, describes the day when the electronic medical records (EMR) system at her hospital failed and the impact this had on clinical decision making. She highlights that the downtime forced doctors across the hospital to speak with patients about their condition and symptoms, and to collaborate with the nurses who had been monitoring them all night. It also made her realise that the many test results she was used to referencing for every patient were not all necessary to make clinical decisions. She reflects, "The EMR downtime made me realise that while the system seems to make our clinical routine convenient, it may not result in increased efficiency or better patient care."
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Content ArticleSafety-netting advice is information shared with a patient or their carer to help them identify the need to seek further help if their condition fails to improve or changes. In some instances, it is mandatory for pharmacists to give patients safety-netting advice. This article in the Pharmaceutical Journal provides advice for pharmacists on how they can provide this advice clearly and appropriately. The article explains the importance of safety-netting and when it is appropriate, describes elements to include when safety-netting and provides advice on how to adequately document advice given.
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Content Article
In this joint statement, National Voices, The Richmond Group of Charities and 68 other health and social care organisations are calling on the Department of Health and Social Care to pause or extend the consultation process for the 10-year review of the NHS Constitution, ensuring that everyone is able to respond. Patient Safety Learning is one of the signatories of this statement. -
Content Article
In the past, long before Covid, doctors used to openly discuss complex cases and unexpected deaths on an anonymous basis either in the doctors' mess or in medical grand rounds hosted by their hospital’s clinical education department. What's happened to these forums for learning? Are these clinical conversations alive and well, and helping doctors and nurses alike to learn from safety incidents? Or have medical grand rounds disappeared from practice?- Posted
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Content ArticleIn Birmingham, eight out of 10 Somali children live in ‘poor’ households with low levels of economic activity and high rates of mental health issues, such as PTSD. In the UK, six in 10 (59%) people in the Somali community live in overcrowded accommodation, compared to fewer than one in 10 (8%) of the overall population. Meanwhile, studies show that many Somali people find it difficult to access health and social care services, due to language and socio-economic barriers. Suad Duale is a community activist, clinician, mother and researcher who grew up as a Somali refugee in Birmingham. In this blog for The King's Fund, she describes how unfair treatment of the Somali community leads to a collective lack of trust in professionals, particularly in the health system. She describes the issues contributing to the disparities faced by the community, including a lack of people from the Somali community in leadership roles who are able to advocate for the needs of the community. She describes the work of Dream Chaser Youth Club in Birmingham, where she volunteers by acting as a link to help people from the Somali community connect with health and care services.
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Content ArticleDespite growing awareness of diagnostic error, most healthcare systems do not track or record diagnostic quality, and many diagnostic safety events are not recognised. Without methods to identify, measure, investigate and analyse events, healthcare organisations cannot understand causes of diagnostic errors, identify contributing factors or create solutions. One of the best ways to collect information about diagnostic errors is through self-reporting by patients and healthcare professionals. This issue brief from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality looks at how to foster psychological safety and organisational safety culture in order to reduce harm from diagnostic error.
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News Article
Hospital surgical teams with more women improve patient recovery, study finds
Patient-Safety-Learning posted a news article in News
Hospital surgical teams that include more female doctors improve patient outcomes, lower the risk of serious complications and could in turn reduce healthcare costs, according to the world’s largest study of its kind. Studies show diversity is important in business, finance, tech, education and the law not only for equity but for output. However, evidence supporting the value of sex diversity in healthcare teams has been limited. Now researchers who examined more than 700,000 operations spanning a decade report that hospitals with more women in their surgical teams provide better outcomes for patients. The findings were published in the British Journal of Surgery. “Care in hospitals with greater anaesthesia-surgery team sex diversity was associated with better postoperative outcomes,” the researchers concluded. “The main takeaway for clinical practice and health policy is that increasing operating room teams’ sex diversity is not a question of representation or social justice, but an important part of optimising performance." Dr Julie Hallet, the lead author of the study at the University of Toronto, said, “These results are the start of an important shift in understanding the way in which diversity contributes to quality in perioperative care.” Read full story Source: Guardian, 15 May 2024 -
Content ArticleWomen with learning disabilities are less likely to access cervical and breast cancer screening when compared to the general population. In this study, the Social Ecological Model (SEM) was used to examine the inequalities faced by women with learning disabilities in accessing cervical and breast cancer screening in England. The study highlighted the following barriers to access for women with learning disabilities:Women with learning disabilities may lack knowledge of cancer symptoms and cancer screening, as well as being scared about the process and getting the results. The attitudes of family and paid carers towards screening may influence women with learning disabilities' decisions as to whether screening is seen as favourable; support and training may ensure unbiased perspectives. Barriers associated with how cancer screening programmes are designed, such as postal invitations which assumes an ability to read. Screening staff need to be aware of the general needs of people with learning disabilities, such as the benefits of easy-to-read documents. Multidisciplinary working is required so reasonable adjustments can be embedded into cancer screening pathways.The authors suggest that multiple methods to reduce the inequalities faced by women with learning disabilities are needed, and that these can be achieved through reasonable adjustments. Embedding reasonable adjustments can support women with learning disabilities in making an informed decision and accessing screening if they choose to. This may result in women with learning disabilities getting a timely cancer diagnosis.
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Content Article
In an increasingly global healthcare environment, with patients and professionals from many different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, precision in medical document translation is key. Medical documents can range from patient records, patient information leaflets, consent forms, prescriptions, treatment plans to research papers. The translator must have a thorough understanding of the source text and subject matter in order to produce a high-quality target document and ensure patients receive accurate information. But this can come with patient risk, if not done properly. In this blog, Melanie Cole, Translations Coordinator at EIDO Systems International, talks about the challenges, risks and opportunities for using AI in healthcare translation.
