An Examination of the Role of Communication Problems in Preventable Medical Adverse Events

<p>This exploratory descriptive study examined 30 medical malpractice case files and 30 medical incident investigations to identify the prevalence of three barriers to effective communication among healthcare professionals. These cases were randomly selected from the files of the Office of the Air Force Surgeon General. Barriers included problems with encoding and decoding information hierarchical structure of teams and time pressures and workload. The results of this study indicated that communication errors were present in 76 percent of the cases examined. A total of 92 communication problems were noted. Verbal and written communication problems were equally distributed. Nurse and physician miscommunication was as common as physician-to-physician miscommunication. Eleven cases were noted as having hostile work environments. Only two cases involved problems with communication as the result of time pressures or workload. The study concludes a broad-based program that facilitates communication throughout healthcare facilities may help decrease medical errors. Suggestions for further research are given.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p>