...Christina Ninh November 10, 2014 HCA 6225 Fall 2014 Case Study #6 Effective communication is the foundation of any health care team; and conversely, poor or nonexistent communication in a health care setting can negatively impact patient care. Preventing such medical miscommunication means fewer medical errors. And like the Case of Jesica Santillon, deaths occur in the US each year because of medical mistakes; the biggest factor being miscommunication or lack thereof between multiple health care professionals. In the Case of Jesica Santillon, Duke University Hospital, one the nation’s top medical center, transplanted a heart and two lungs into 17-year-old Jesica Santillon in a rare and difficult operation, whose miscommunication resulted in her receiving organs of the wrong blood type, and ultimately an untimely death. Jesica was smuggled by her parents from Mexico to the United States in search of treatment to a life-threatening heart and lung disorder that doctors in Mexico could not fix. Through charity, enough money was raised for her to receive a transplant, however the procedure went wrong and lead to severe brain damage. When informed by the doctors that they planned to stop treatment, her mother announced at a press conference via a translator that “they are taking her off of the medicine little by little in order to kill her. They want to rid themselves of this problem.” It is evident that social and cultural barriers made it difficult for doctors...
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...Communication Barriers at Duke Medical Center Introduction: Effective communication requires messages to be conveyed clearly to the appropriate parties, but along the way there are many communication barriers that can create misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the intended message (Burns et al., 2012). Such misunderstandings and misinterpretations are apparent in the case of Jesica Santillon. This case study will identify the social and cultural barriers that may have made it difficult for the doctors to communicate with Jessica’s family. This case study will also offer recommendations on modification of the transplant process to ensure that misunderstandings are eliminated or minimized; and lastly it will propose some general communication strategies to manage communication with each group involved in this tragic case. Communication Barriers There may have been many communication barriers that hindered the doctors from effectively communicating with Jesica’s family. We will discuss some social and cultural communication barriers between the physicians and Jesica’s family: The language differences may have been a leading obstacle to effective communication between the physicians and the family, The family recently migrated to the United States seeking treatment for Jesica's condition and were not fluent in the English language. Health literacy may have also induced the communication barrier between the physicians and...
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