Summary: Improving Nurse Communication

Nurses are required to effectively communicate within interdisciplinary teams in order to provide safe, effective, high quality, patient-centered care. Communication is one of the most critical skills needed for healthcare professional, especially nurse leaders. "Communication impacts all management activities and cuts across all phases of the management process, as nurse leaders communicate with patients and families, colleagues, superiors and subordinates" (Marquis and Huston, 2015, p. 459). There are many different ways of communicating, including verbal and non-verbal and "technology has dramatically changed how nurses communicate and perform their work” (Marquis and Huston, 2015, p. 452). Technology helps to facilitate real-time communication between healthcare providers by providing instant access to valuable, current health information on patients. Information technology systems include the internet, hospital information systems such as the electronic health record (EHR) and intranets, social …show more content…
We must find the right balance between technological communications and the human face-to-face interaction patients need and deserve. It becomes the responsibility of nurse leaders to advocate for, support and use technology to enhance nursing operations. This is accomplished when nurse leaders and managers "determine which communication systems should be used within an organization to promote efficiency and effectiveness of communication; ensure all healthcare workers are given the proper education and training to utilize the technology systems to their full capacity; and balance cost verse benefit of implementation (Marquis & Huston, 2015). In addition, nurse leaders must have the ability to extract data and use the data to help improve nursing operations, including management, education, research and clinical