Unit 7 Communicating in Health and Social Care organizations

This is a solution of Communicating Health Social Care Organizations Assignment in which we discuss communicating in health and social care organizations. Apply relevant theories of communication to health and social care contexts

Based on the case as well as the video, it is event that there has been lack of care and negligence on the doctor’s front in curing the patients that had ultimately led to the death of the patients. This clearly depicts the sheer loss of effective communication that had led to the loss of appropriate treatment for the patients.

Therefore, it is very essential to have proper communication skills in health and social care so that no information is missed out from one of the communicator to the other. The following communication theories will be taken into consideration and if implemented would improve the standard of healthcare with more affectivity:

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory– This theory had mainly occurred in the 2 instances discussed as part of this activity. This theory highlights that people generally tend to avoid the opinions or the feelings of the others who oppose their opinions and who try to change their activity or opinions (Savage, 2000). If this kind of communication is avoided then the healthcare industry will be a safer and a more reliable place for the general public.
• Coordinated Management of Meaning – This is a theory which takes into consideration a more coordinated approach of communication where all the subjects listen and understands the perspective of each other thereby, creating positive and effective flow of information resulting in better communication. Moreover, using the related examples and meanings the individuals create a more cohesive mode of communication.
• Group Think – This is the most important part of the communication theories that is applicable in the healthcare industry. According to this theory generally the groups under a given situation tend to think on similar lines but are reluctant to share their unpopular ideas which ultimately results in premature decision making. This needs to be addressed and whatever may be the idea the group members should have the flexibility to showcase.

Use communication skills in a health and social care context

Communication skills plays a very essential role in health and social context. It is in this industry that human health is at stake and human errors ought to occur. The Human error in in these industries is more than 75 % and this can be greatly reduced if proper communication modes and channels are used.

Effective communication skills like listening to the opinion of others, group discussion, using proper channels to communicate effectively at various levels of organizational structure generally forms and important part of the health and the social care industry. If these kind of effective communication is used among the various key entities like the doctors, nurses, other medical practitioners, patients, their relatives, etc. there would be very less chances of error.

Moreover, when any of the subordinates tries to communicate something to the higher officials or the subordinates then they should be given heed and importance as sometimes their inputs might be essential and useful in solving several issues pertaining to the life of the patients or in the resolving issues in the social context. Every individual have their point of view but it is not expressed every time with the fear that it might not be relevant or might be useless in the context of the group. But at times these opinions might be most effective and useful in resolving several conflicts that helps in saving lives.

Review methods of dealing with inappropriate interpersonal communication between individuals in health and social care settings.

There are several instances when there are occurrences of inappropriate communications between several individual and this can be countered by using the following methods:

• Inducing proper trainings for all the employees to have effective communication skills in workplace.
• Introduction of proper channels to communicate if any of the useful information shared by the subordinates is not heard or worked upon by the higher authorities.
• Formation of a group who can regularly provide consultation to the people who needs an improvement in their communication skills.
• Using Negative motivation like having proper penalty system in place. If any of the useful suggestions that might be useful for the patient or any other relevant situation is neglected by any of the higher official, then strict actions needs to be taken.

Analyze the use of strategies to support users of health and social care services with specific communication needs

The users of the Health and Social Care Services needs to possess specific and sound communication skills in order to make their opinions or voice count. The best strategy that could be used here would be to use the Media in order to educate the citizens of the ways in which they can communicate as well as make their communications effective. Moreover, the situations pertaining to communication breakdown needs to be analyzed and sorted.

The government can take active part in such initiative as well as the NGOs which can help the citizens to know how to communicate to the healthcare officials during crucial hours of a patient’s health. Moreover, the social media could also be effectively used as now internet is the viral source of spreading any information quickly with utmost affectivity. Several videos could be uploaded on the social networking sites with clear messages to address the proper channels of communication that can be used by the users of the health and social care services and the apt ways to channelize the same if there are no actions taken for their opinions (Bennett, 2010). This will not only provide a learning for the users but also for the practitioners who would then be more cautious of the after affect if they are found guilty of any such situations. Thus, following these simple strategies and helping to improve the communication skills, which many users are not aware of, can help in the creation of effective harmony and reduce the chances of human error in the health and social context.

Essay section 2 (LO 2)

Explain how the communication process is influenced by values and cultural factors

Communication is an essential component of life. Some communicate verbally others through actions. Effective communication is done when a message from one of the individual is effectively passed to the recipient and understood. In context of the case there is sheer loss of communication skills for the student nurse. She lacked the very basic essence of talking to a person in need especially a patient who is suffering and is bedridden.

Communication skills are mainly developed by several factors like the socio-cultural upbringing as well as the environment in which an individual is brought up. The first place of developing the communication skills for an individual is from the family itself at home. They are first influencers as well as the teachers for a child and it usually helps in development of the communication process for the individual. The social environment of upbringing influences the hold and the mastery over the language, the vocabulary as well as the accent of an individual. Moreover, the family values as well as the cultures in which an individual is brought up is highly influential in the development of the communications skills like the way they talk, the articulation provided, the accent, etc. For example, there will be a major difference in the communication skills on an individual coming from an Urban Locality than that of a Suburb or a village.

There could be several barriers on various fronts like differences of languages, cultures, environmental conditions, etc. In the healthcare and social care industry, cultural differences needs to be tacked for affective service.

Explain how legislation, charters and codes of practice impact on the communication process in health and social care settings.

There have been several laws and regulations that needs to be abided by the service industry specifically the healthcare and social care industry. The rules and regulations pertaining to Laws and charters are mainly designed based on the previous instances and any incident that needs to be addressed or controlled. Legislations play a very crucial role in the setting standards for the communication process. These are specific to countries and based on the rules of the land. For example, the manner in which the patients are treated, the ways their information is kept confidential, the way they are handled and treated all for a part of the legislative laws. When these are listed as part of the Code of Conduct and communicated to the employees of these organizations, the employees are expected to behave in the manner as expected by the legislation of the land and specific to the organization.

It is very crucial that the employees of the organization, understands the legislative laws, charters as well as the codes of conduct in order to service the patients and the people in need. There are several laws and Acts that are devised by the various countries for the benefit of their citizens. Several sections in the Legislative Acts protects the various rights of the patients as well as the manner in which they are treated. Several policies and Acts like Data Protection, Treatments, Human Rights, etc. are created for safeguarding the rights of the patients. All these policies help in creating effective communication in the healthcare industry and avoid any violation in the rights of the individual.

Analyze the effectiveness of organizational systems and policies in promoting good practice in communication in health and social care settings.

The effective organizational structure and policies is extensively important in communications in health and social care. These can be taken into consideration by taking into account the various rights and acts available for effective communication. The organizational systems and policies can be effective when the history data of the patients are taken into consideration and any flaws in the past are taken into consideration and marked as learnings for the future. The documentation of any such instances help in the future references and effective communication for related cases.

Moreover, the organizations should create a database not only of its policies but also of the specific case instances, which will eventually help the employees to quickly refer to solutions of the past and provide effective solutions instantly without any delays. Also the organizations should leverage effective communication strategies for the patients in order to get their case details and provide effective healthcare solutions. For doing so, most of the organizations makes the patients or their relatives aware of the various policies and takes their consent before starting the treatments to abide by effective communication policies. Similar approach is devised for the employees as well who will be part of the communication team for the organizations. Thus, the effectiveness is usually measured with the response time as well as the success rates of the organizations in curing the illness or providing instant solutions to the patients.

Suggest ways of improving the communication process in a health and social care settings.

Communication process plays a very vital role in the health and social care industry and improving the same is highly critical. Improvements in the process can be brought about by the following ways:

• Providing regular trainings to the employees about the policies and the communication methods that would be required while dealing with the patients.
• Documenting the success stories as well as the drawbacks from previous experiences (Nutbeam, 2000).
• Collecting feedbacks from the patients and taking appropriate steps for required actions.
• Using commonly used and easy to understand languages
• Hiring the right kind of employees who are best fit for the job roles as well as have the basic communication skills and etiquettes of handling the patients.

Thus, implementing the aforesaid recommendations, the organizations can improve the communication process in health and social care industry.

Essay section 3 (LO 3)

Access and use standard ICT software packages to support work in health and social care settings.

Information technology plays a very critical role in the health and social care environment.

There are several ICT software which are widely used by the healthcare industry to cater to as well as make its operations more efficient. These softwares enable the used of several databases, tools and solution catalogs along with patient histories to cater to the organizational requirements.

These softwares are later linked to the central portal for providing various accessibility to the users as well as to the admins. For example, in GE Healthcare website, the list of ICT Software packages are accessed from the internet. The ICT software like OncoQuant provides several information pertaining to features like the self-registrations, selection of Treatment methods, details about prerequisites for installation to servicing. It also gives testimonials and several images related to the software. These softwares also help the organizations to maintain and store data for future references.

OncoQuant also provides several features like advanced visualization tools, summary table, and exports data and generates reports. It also provides the option of exporting the results in CSV or Excel format. It also provides details pertaining to the intended use of the software for the various purposes in the medical scenarios. This software finds its use in the analysis domain based on the various details obtained from CT, X-Rays or MR scanning (http://www3.gehealthcare.com/)

Thus, several organizations use these kind of ICT softwares for data quality management as well as for managing the financials and the transactions on both the patients as well as on the employees front.

Analyze the benefits of using ICT in health and social care for users of services, care workers and care organizations.

ICT plays a very crucial role in the health and social care industry and provides the following benefits to its users as well as the organization as a whole. Following are a list of benefits that it provides:

• It had helped in the institutionalization of the services and helped in providing rapid and easy access to the information for specific problems from across the globe just with the click of a button.
• It helps in managing a complex workforce with easy and also helps the users with getting their profile specific information from the Organization portal. It also provides access to accurate healthcare records with diagnosis details and saves time in starting the experiment diagnosis approach from scratch.
• ICT also enables remote contacts and consultation options along with diagnosis as well as treatment through Tele-services.
• ICT also enables in keeping the databases of the organizations accessible by the employees based on their needs.
• It also provides several proactive engagement activities pertaining to the health of the patients and help them to diagnose their health as well as seek professional help from across the globe.
• ICT also provides technological benefits both for the organizations as well as for the patients in exploring the diversified portfolios across the globe.
• ICT had also resulted in enablement of harmonized medication from across the globe and had enable the users as well as the patients to seek professional advice from the experts free of cost.
• ICT also helps the organizations in managing the track records not only of the patients but also of its employees which enables them to contact them during emergency situations to seek help and guidance.
• It also helps the organizations in reducing the manpower costs and making the data management in a more technologically advanced environment.
• It also increases the effectiveness of the organizations, in providing quality service to both the patients as well as the employees.
• ICT also enables the management of the financials pertaining to both the employees as well as billing of the patients and reduces the time as well as efforts for manual tasks.

Thus, ICT plays a very important role in harmonizing the details of the employees as well as the patients and provide easy access to the data on demand.

Analyze how legal considerations in the use of ICT impact on health and social care settings.

ICT provides several benefits to the health as well as the social care industry but there are several legal challenges that it needs to take care while catering the patients as well as the users. Several regulatory policies and acts takes care of the Legal considerations. The legal entities take the data protection, information security, etc. into consideration for the health care of the patients as well as the employees.

Legal consideration needs to be taken into account by the organizations for safeguarding the patient as well as employee information. ICT is mainly used by most of the established organizations today and they take into consideration several legal obligations for data protection. Also the rights for sharing of the information needs to be taken from the patients as it is very personal information and the patients have legal rights over the information. Moreover, the information leakage can also take place from the organization (Leichsenring, 2004). So proper legal jurisdictions are set in place specific to the countries in order to protect customer information and for any breach of the information legal penalties are also put in place.

However, there are several health care organizations which charge and take special written permissions from the patients to share their information. Several organizations also put several restrictions and create only specific users for the critical data management and security for the same. These officials or the admins have a legal binding for data protection of the patients are liable for any flaws. Thus, there are several obligations which the health and social care organizations should abide to in order to protect the patient information.

Several organizations apart from the state legislations also have their own policies and data protection laws that is also used as one of the USPs by these organizations to attract the patients as well as keep their illness history intact.

References

Bennett, P. (Ed.). (2010). Risk communication and public health. Oxford University Press. Leichsenring, K. (2004). Developing integrated health and social care services for older persons in Europe. International journal of integrated care, 4. Nutbeam, D. (2000). Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century. Health promotion international, 15(3), 259-267. Savage, J. (2000). Ethnography and health care. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 321(7273), 1400.

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