Health Care and Nurse Research Proposal

Nurse Communication

Communication is one of the most important aspects of nursing, as the case study of the student and the instructor indicates. The student nurse failed to communicate to the instructor the patient's abnormal oxygen saturation reading -- a reading that could have had very serious consequences for the patient. An entire week going by before this information is relayed to another nurse is highly unacceptable, considering how much emphasis is placed upon preventing medical errors from occurring (Cimiotti, Aiken, Sloane, Wu, 2012). Thus, it is imperative that student nurses appreciate the ramifications of failures in communication -- ramifications that could be potentially fatal for patients and, by extension, legally adverse for the health care facility. Stressing the crucial importance of nurse to nurse communication is vital to the well-being both of the health care organization and the well-being of the patient.

Importance of Nurse to Nurse Communication

The importance of nurse to nurse communication is essential to ensuring that preventive medical errors do not occur. Nurse to nurse communication reduces the risk of pertinent information falling through the cracks, and when communication is habitual and guided, preventable medical errors that can cause harm to patients are less likely to occur.

In the case of the student nurse who failed to alert the clinical instructor of the patient's low oxygen saturation reading, a significant error was made on the student's part. Not only did the student fail to report the abnormal reading to the supervisor immediately, but there was also no documented evidence of any follow-up action. In other words, the instructor had no way of knowing (by looking at the data reports filed by the student the following week) whether any action was taken at all on behalf of the patient. The abnormal reading is there signaling a red flag to the instructor -- and should have signaled a red flag for the student nurse -- but no other information is attached regarding what the student nurse did about the reading. There is no communication -- and the instructor is now in the dark regarding the status of the patient. To investigate the matter will now take time out of the instructor's schedule, disrupting the duties he or she must perform so as to unearth more information about the patient as well as about the nurse and why he/she recorded no other actions.

As the case suggests, there is too much confusion and too many unknowns -- and in health care, this is not a good practice. When patients' lives are in the balance and the integrity of the health care providers on the line as a result, communication issues take on supreme importance. The instructor must now ask whether something happened to the nurse that obstructed the nurse from reporting the abnormal reading, whether the nurse is lacking in formation or whether this error was caused by fatigue, whether the patient's health has been impaired, whether any action at all was taken (if so, why it was not recorded), and so on. In short, a number of questions and alarms are now raised that could have been prevented had proper communication processes been followed and nurse to nurse communication been effectively achieved.

Negative Implications of Failure to Communicate

The negative implications of failure to communicate are first foremost related to patient safety. Patients have the right to expect reasonable quality care from health care providers and if vital information or readings are not transmitted or communicated correctly, the patient's safety can be jeopardized. If the patient's safety is jeopardized, the health care provider is likewise jeopardized, especially if the patient's health suffers: legal repercussions may follow. Medical malpractice lawsuits are quite burdensome and can be devastating for health care providers -- and if nurse to nurse communication is all that is need to prevent an error or emergency from occurring, special attention should be given to ensuring that communication is provided.

Failures to communicate can also undermine trust and transparency among nurses. If a nurse receives a bad reputation for failing to communicate to other nurses important information, that nurse will very quickly be viewed as a risk asset, one with whom other nurses will not want to work. The situation could escalate to the point where scheduling conflicts occur and employee morale drops.

Most importantly, however, is the fact that the patient's health is at risk. This is the biggest negative implication of a nurse's failure to communicate. With the patient in the case study, a low 87% oxygen saturation reading could be especially…