4 Essential Communication Strategies That Promote Patient Safety

Course overview

This instructional continuing education course is designed for nurses who are in direct care or middle management positions in hospitals; long-term care facilities, and other frontline in- and out-patient practice settings. Despite 15 years of national focus on improving patient safety outcomes, we continue to have staggering statistics involving preventable deaths, illnesses, and injuries that are due to medical errors. And because communication breakdowns and associated problems with inter-professional relationships have long been major contributors to these alarming problems it is imperative for nurses to develop skills and promote positive interpersonal dynamics. Respectful interactions and effective communication seem simple on paper, yet successful efforts to practice them in the field remain elusive. In this course, students will examine patient safety statistics and root cause analysis data in order to understand the scope of the problem and how persistent issues with communication and human dynamics are interfering with providing safe care. This foundation will provide the incentive to commit to exploring and practicing communication strategies that will help to solve them. A basic knowledge of assertiveness, listening, and emotional intelligence is required as students take a 'deeper dive' with Beth Boynton, RN, MS to develop their abilities to: set limits, delegate tasks, and give and receive constructive feedback.