Project description
The project addresses a crucial practical problem by developing a sustainable online platform to teach and train medical students and health professionals with using a validated communication framework based on an understanding of clinician’s and patients’ priorities and an interpretation of their needs, contributing to the quality and safety of the patient journey.
Within the framework of the project, health communication scholars and experienced health care practitioners will collaborate to produce 10 videos of each of two sorts: instructional videos teaching key features of effective clinical communication; and interviews with experts reflecting on their experiences with clinical communication.
Building on an existing local and international network of clinical trainers and experts in professional communication, the video platform will be publicized and made available on demand to a broad audience of stakeholders, including the general public, frontline health providers, patients, carers and medical students from various disciplines (e.g. doctors, nurses, psychotherapists, Chinese Medicine practitioners, counsellors and social workers) around the world. Stakeholders will be able to improve their communication skills in clinical settings, thus ultimately improving patient safety and clinical outcomes.
The production of the videos will follow an existing model which has so far been used by the Department of English at City University to transfer research findings on professional communication to professionals in the areas of law (https://legalenglish.hk/), veterinary medicine and the humanities and social sciences. The videos will be uploaded to YouTube and publicised through a platform hosted on the website of the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong, thus insuring the sustainability of the outcomes.
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Results of Ineffective communication
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A major cause of critical incidents in hospitals
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Results in patient harm and death
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Triggers most patient complaints.
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Ineffective communication can either be between nurses themselves in the process of transferring information about a patient. This problem has been the focus of research conducted by the principal investigator at both private and public hospitals in Hong Kong, in collaboration with the Hospital Authority of the Hong Kong SAR Government, the School of Nursing at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and the Institute of Communication in Health Care (ICH) at Australian National University (ANU).
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This underpinning research has been applied in work on nursing handovers which has trained more than 60 nurses to date. We have received further competitive funding from the Hong Kong Government to roll out more nursing training modules to all the nurses in Hong Kong public hospitals to improve their clinical communication skills and overall quality of nursing handovers.
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Despite their demonstrated effectiveness, these face-to-face training interventions have not reached important groups, including: other medical professionals than nurses; students and other not-in-service nurses; and, critically, the medical professional worldwide, for whom the communication challenges are equally relevant.
The present project aims to broaden the impact of the existing research findings by developing an online self-access training platform entitled: “Communicating for patient safety through effective clinical communication.” The outcome of the project will be a series of videos involving scholars and experienced clinicians. It will provide an evidence-based online training platform to improve the quality of clinical communication.
Project Objectives
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The project addresses a crucial practical problem by developing a sustainable i online platform to teach and train medical students and health professionals with using a validated communication framework based on an understanding of clinician’s and patients’ priorities and an interpretation of their needs, contributing to the quality and safety of the patient journey.
Within the framework of the project, health communication scholars and experienced health care practitioners will collaborate to produce 10 videos of each of two sorts: instructional videos teaching key features of effective clinical communication; and interviews with experts reflecting on their experiences with clinical communication.
Building on an existing local and international network of clinical trainers and experts in professional communication, the video platform will be publicised and made available on demand to a broad audience of stakeholders, including the general public, frontline health providers, patients, carers and medical students from various disciplines (e.g. doctors, nurses, psychotherapists, Chinese Medicine practitioners, counsellors and social workers) around the world. Stakeholders will be able to improve their communication skills in clinical settings, thus ultimately improving patient safety and clinical outcomes.
The production of the videos will follow an existing model which has so far been used by the Department of English at City University to transfer research findings on professional communication to professionals in the areas of law (https://legalenglish.hk/), veterinary medicine and the humanities and social sciences. The videos will be uploaded to YouTube and publicised through a platform hosted on the website of the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong, thus insuring the sustainability of the outcomes.