Effective Communication and Care Coordination

Answer

Effective Communication and Care Coordination

The National Quality Strategy establishes three objectives, six priorities, and nine levers to promote quality improvements. These are used by both private and public organizations to formulate courses of improving health and health care (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, Shabot, 2012). This document will explore how effective communication and care coordination, as a critical priority of the National Quality Strategy, seeks to promote quality in health care system and how this strategy can be applied in other industries to improve operations. The National Quality Strategy is focused on three main objectives namely (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, Shabot, 2012);

• Better Care: Improve the overall quality of health and health care by making health care more reliable, accessible, patient-centered, and safe.
• Healthy People/Healthy Communities: Improve the health of the general population by supporting proven interventions that address behavioral, environmental determinants of health, social and, in addition, delivering higher-quality care.
• Affordable Care: Reduce the cost of quality health care within the U.S population including individuals, families, employers, and government.

To advance these aims, the national quality strategy prioritizes effective communication and care coordination as a critical strategy (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, Shabot, 2012). Notably, the United States has a fragmented Health Care System that is complex for navigation by the caregivers, patients, and families given the many inefficiencies. Lack of effective communication has often resulted in poor care coordination that has posited serious implications such as medical errors, unnecessary suffering and pain for patients and hospital readmissions. Lack of care coordination is also associated with higher costs of medical services due to expenses on the preventable readmissions and the subsequent treatment costs (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, Shabot, 2012). The National Quality Strategy requires all the stakeholders to endorse effective communication and care coordination across the healthcare system by focusing on the aforementioned three major goals. Effective communication and care coordination are significantly important in reducing errors in care and overutilization of services. This is because patients often interact with many physicians, medical assistants, nurses, and other trained professionals across multiple settings.

Enhanced communication strategies through elaborate discharge processes and the adoption of health information technologies within the health care settings have remarkably improved measures of care coordination (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, Shabot, 2012). Notably, the discharge instructions are crucial for effective communication and care coordination, both from care providers to patients and, from one care provider to another. Consequently, discharge instructions for patients with chronic illness is a critical form of communication to home care providers and significantly helps to coordinate care plans between the discharging health professional and the intended home care providers. This strategy has positively impacted on the quality of health care provided as posited by the increased percentage of patients with heart-related diseases who got complete written discharge instructions between 2005 and 2012 (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, Shabot, 2012).

 Meaningful use of electronic health records of patients is effective communication strategy that involves using certified electronic health record technology to improve efficiency, safety, quality, and reduce health disparities by improving care coordination, engaging patients and family and improving population and public health. It also facilitates maintenance of privacy and security of patient’s health information (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, Shabot, 2012).

 Chronic diseases such as diabetes require consistent interaction between the patient and the health care systems as well as proper coordination of care between the patient and the multiple care providers (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, Shabot, 2012). An effective communication and care coordination between the patient and the care providers is critical towards the successful management of the chronic illness. For instance, this strategy is noted to have led to significant improvement in the health of children with asthma in Boston and reduced their cost of care. There was a significant decrease in the hospital costs. These indicate that the strategic priority of effective communication and care coordination is critical in meeting all the three objectives of the National Quality Strategy (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, Shabot, 2012). Effective communication among clinicians is critical in coordinating care for patients with medical conditions that require multiple medical expertise to be successfully managed. The health professionals need to share critical information about the medical progress of the patient through various communication strategies (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, Shabot, 2012). This is crucial in keeping track of the patient progress and avoiding medical errors by the care providers.

Application in various industries

Other organizations can significantly improve their operation by adopting effective communication strategies. For instance, effective communication about the information on the organizational performance data is critical for evaluation of the progress of the company (Laschinger, Smith, 2013). The organizational performance data and the information is a critical part of an organization's operations because it provides the ground upon which the performance of the organization can be assessed, and predictions of the future of the company can be drawn. The information is also integral in communicating with the end users more so if the organization requires feedback from the customers regularly. Besides, information about staff level in an organization is significant in improving the operations of the organization (George, Quinlan, Reardon, Aguilera, 2012). Staffing level refers to having the right personnel as staff in the right place and at the right time. The information on the staffing levels and staffing needs are significant in enhancing the safety of operations and health of the workers. Besides, the information is integral to planning and implementing new projects as it helps in determining appropriate staffing levels in the new projects. 

The effective communication of information provides the knowledge on activity and services of an organization is significant in developing plans to promote the organization and its services by communicating the key messages relevant stakeholders and evaluating how effective is a given promotional activity (Laschinger, Smith, 2013). Effective communication, teamwork, and collaboration can greatly improve quality and efficiency in an organization. Efficient communication brings about coordination among employees that induces collaboration, and teamwork that are of significant importance in minimizing and reducing the impact of staff shortage and poor job satisfaction. Lack of communication, collaboration and teamwork provide a fertile environment for medical errors to occur (Laschinger, Smith, 2013). Poor communication has tragic consequences as it derails collaboration and kills spirit teamwork necessary for continuity and clarity in the healthcare team. Good communication promotes collaboration among the medical personnel (George, Quinlan, Reardon, Aguilera, 2012). The collaboration enhances teamwork and sharing of expertise among professionals hence will reduce medical errors and promote patient satisfaction (Laschinger, Smith, 2013). Through collaboration, health professionals cooperatively work together, assume complementary roles and share responsibilities hence, improve the contact between the patients and professionals at a particular time. I will explore the following techniques that can help foster collaboration, inclusion and enhance effective communication in an organization (George, Quinlan, Reardon, Aguilera, 2012):

• Empowering the employees to perform their distinct roles and,
• Setting and effectively communicating clear and well-understood team goals that are accepted by all staff.

Empowering employees to autonomously perform their distinct roles helps promote job satisfaction among the staff and also reduce misunderstandings among colleagues thus, foster teamwork and collaboration (George, Quinlan, Reardon, Aguilera, 2012).  Setting clear team goals that are well understood and accepted by all staff will help reduce cases of conflict of interest among members hence promote cordial interaction and consequently, improve communication among the staff (George, Quinlan, Reardon, Aguilera, 2012).