HealthCare Communication Opinion Paper
Health communication is crucial to the success of health care encounters and it is the most import tool that health professionals have to provide effective health care to their clients. Communication is the transferring of information between people or places through verbal messages, effective communication begins with relaying messages in a clear, direct way where they can be easily interpreted and received, in order for the communication to be effective the sender has to relay or present their ideals by using the correct wording, sounds and even gestures in a way that the receiver can easily understand the message. Good medical care depends upon effective communication between providers and patients, without it caregivers cannot make accurate diagnoses, execute their recommendations or hear and understand their patients concerns (du Pré, 2005). According to "Impact of Communication in Healthcare" (2011), “Extensive research has shown that no matter how knowledgeable a clinician might be, if he or she is not able to open good communication with the patient, he or she may be of no help.” Several studies that have been conducted over the last three decades have suggested that healthcare professional’s ability to empathize and reflective listening can have a profound effect on their patient’s perceptions of the quality of healthcare that they are receiving, from a patient point of view Reverend George Handzo a patient and also a hospital chaplain made the statement that patient safety, palliative care and cultural sensitivity relies on good communication between healthcare members, patients and family members, Mr. Handzo went on to say that the core skill of good communication is listening (HANDZO, 2012). There are four basic effective elements of communication and they are the sender, the receiver, the message and the