Critical Communication, Using Plain Language to Reduce Medical Errors View White Paper Here
This program was made possible by a grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation.
Critical Communication: Using Plain Language to Reduce Medical Errors has been developed to reflect the community-building work of PULSE of New York, a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing medical errors. Critical Communication takes the world-wide health literacy movement in new directions. It sees health literacy as a two-way street that requires patients to speak up when they don’t understand their health care information, and encourages doctors and hospitals to provide that information in clear ways. Critical Communication seeks to improve the ways patients, their families and health care providers relate to one another in speech, in writing and in non-verbal behavior. Critical Communication empowers patients to ask for information, while putting the onus on health care providers to make the information understandable.
PULSE has developed Critical Communication programs for patients, their families and health care providers. PULSE is working with community organizations and literacy groups to empower people to ask specific questions of their doctors. And PULSE is teaching compassionate communication to patients and health care providers, in the hopes of sharpening listening skills and inspiring compassion on both sides of the stethoscope. Improving Critical Communication in the doctor-patient relationship will reduce health care costs, improve outcomes, help to ease suffering following an unplanned outcome, and most importantly will save lives.
To learn more about Critical Communication contact PULSE at (516) 579-4711
Achieving Cooperation through Communication
Skills for Creating Trust and Effective Partnerships
Are you frustrated because as much time as you spend with your patients, they don’t understand your directions or don’t comply with your treatment plan?
Do errors happen in your hospital because you and your patient didn’t communicate well?
Have you ever had a family member say that the negative outcome was because the “doctor didn’t listen”?
What does it mean when the patient asks for a second opinion?
These issues and others like them remind us how important good communication between the patient, family and medical team is. If there are miscommunication and misunderstanding, it can lead to a patient’s fear, hostility, lack of trust, and many hours spent patching up problems.
Critical Communication skills provide simple tools that can build trust and enhance effectiveness when dealing with family members and others within the medical system. By applying principles that support an intention for more authentic connection, you will experience a shift in the quality of all your interactions.
Critical Communication covers health literacy and compassionate communication skills to get the most out of your time whether you are a patient, family member of medical provider.
