HHSC 1040 — Week 2: Communication & Collaboration

Flashcards based on Week $$2$$ lecture notes on communication, collaboration, and health records in nursing.

What are the $3$ phases of the traditional therapeutic nurse–patient relationship?

Orientation, working, and termination.

What is the purpose of the orientation phase?

The nurse and patient begin to see each other as individuals, identify the patient's major problems and needs, establish expectations, and develop enough trust to continue the relationship.

What can happen during the working phase?

Patients may have alternating periods of intense effort and resistance to change as they work through problems and toward goals.

What is the purpose of the termination phase?

To enable the nurse and patient to end the therapeutic relationship appropriately, including preparing the patient for discharge and the end of care.

What is self-awareness in nursing?

The ability to recognize one's own emotions, prejudices, and biases and understand how they may be perceived by others.

What are professional boundaries?

The spaces between the nurse's professional power and the client's vulnerability. The nurse's power comes from the professional position and access to private information about the client.

What is a boundary violation?

A situation in which there is confusion between the needs of the nurse and the needs of the client.

Who is responsible for establishing and maintaining professional boundaries?

The nurse. The nurse must monitor for deviations outside the boundaries and modify behavior as needed.

What should nurses avoid regarding professional and personal relationships?

Combining a professional nurse–patient relationship with a personal or business relationship.

What is therapeutic use of self?

Using self-awareness and one's interpersonal abilities intentionally so that the nurse–patient relationship remains professional and therapeutic.

What is communication?

The process of exchanging information and generating and transmitting meanings between $2$ or more people.

What are the $5$ major elements of the communication process?

Sender/source/encoder, message, receiver/decoder, feedback, and context.

What is the sender/source/encoder?

The person or group that initiates or begins the communication process.

What is the message?

The communication product sent by the sender.

What is the receiver/decoder?

The person or group who obtains the message and interprets it.

What is feedback?

A confirmation that the message was received and processed, shown through responses such as words, a head nod, a confused expression, or sometimes silence while processing.

What is context in communication?

The setting in which an interaction occurs, including the mood and the relationship between the sender and receiver and other circumstances that can affect communication.

What is noise in the communication process?

Any factor that distorts the quality of a message or interferes with communication, including environmental distractions or internal factors such as pain, fatigue, stress, or grief.

What are the $2$ major forms of communication?

Verbal and nonverbal communication.

What is verbal communication?

An exchange of information using words, including spoken and written words.

What is nonverbal communication?

Communication through body language and other behaviors rather than words, such as touch, eye contact, facial expression, posture, and gestures.

What should a nurse do when verbal and nonverbal messages conflict?

Investigate further to reconcile the inconsistency because the receiver usually gives greater weight to the nonverbal message.

What does congruent communication mean?

The verbal and nonverbal messages match and reinforce each other.

What does incongruent communication mean?

The verbal and nonverbal messages do not match.

Why is eye contact important to understand in nursing communication?

Eye contact can communicate respect and willingness to listen, but its meaning is culturally influenced; in some cultures it may be considered disrespectful or an invasion of privacy.

What are perception, evaluation, and transmission in communication?

Perception is selecting, organizing, and interpreting incoming signals into meaningful messages. Evaluation is analyzing received information. Transmission is expressing information verbally or nonverbally.

What are important professional email guidelines?

Be polite, maintain a professional tone, include a salutation, end with your name/signature, avoid abbreviations and emojis, proofread, and allow yourself time to cool down before sending an angry message.

What is emotional intelligence?

The ability to understand how emotions function within oneself and others and to use emotions effectively.

What are the $5$ areas used to enhance emotional intelligence in the lecture?

Self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, empathy, and social skills.

What is self-regulation?

The ability to control one's own behavior without external control or monitoring.

What is empathy?

The ability to sense intellectually and emotionally the emotions, feelings, and reactions another person is experiencing and communicate that understanding effectively.

What is the difference between empathy and sympathy?

Empathy involves understanding and connecting with another person's experience while remaining objective enough to help; sympathy is a feeling of pity or sorrow for another person's distress.

What are key active-listening behaviors?

Be alert but relaxed, maintain culturally appropriate eye contact, attend to nonverbal communication, think before responding, do not interrupt, pay attention, ask clarifying questions, and use an open posture.

What is an open-ended question?

A question that encourages the patient to freely verbalize and explain their experience rather than giving only a yes/no response.

What is therapeutic silence?

Allowing periods of quiet thought without pressure to fill the silence; it can give the person time to think and may encourage additional information.

Why should nurses use a qualified medical interpreter when needed?

A trained medical interpreter promotes complete and accurate interpretation and patient safety. Patients have the right to communicate effectively in their preferred language.

What is the difference between a medical interpreter and a translator?

A medical interpreter works with spoken communication and is specially trained in healthcare interpretation; a translator works with written documents and converts them from one language to another.

What is teach-back?

A method of verifying understanding in which the nurse asks the patient or family to explain the information back in their own words.

What are common causes of communication breakdown?

Failing to recognize the uniqueness of the individual, failing to recognize levels of meaning, using value statements or clichés, giving false reassurance, and failing to clarify.

What is collaboration in healthcare?

Working jointly with others through structured communication across the healthcare team to achieve patient-centered goals.

What is the difference between intradisciplinary and multidisciplinary teamwork?

Intradisciplinary teamwork involves working with others within the same discipline, such as nurses. Multidisciplinary teamwork involves different healthcare disciplines working together, with each contributing a unique perspective.

What are important principles of effective communication within a healthcare team?

Respect all team members and share important information. Sharing information helps build trust and reinforces that team members are valued.

What is interprofessional collaboration?

Working jointly with other healthcare professionals with interdependency among team members, while recognizing the distinct contributions of each profession.

What are the steps for successful collaboration?

Identify stakeholders; identify the problem; identify barriers; establish desired outcomes and criteria for success; clarify the process; identify who is responsible for each step; and evaluate whether the criteria for success were met.

What are key components of effective interprofessional collaboration?

Respect for collaborators, confidence in one's knowledge, willingness to negotiate, cooperative spirit, belief in a common purpose, valuing other disciplines' contributions, strong communication skills, self-awareness, tolerance of differing opinions, and knowledge of one's limits.

What qualities help someone be a good team member?

Listening well, communicating ideas clearly, accepting criticism, supporting others, asking good questions, contributing, being a team player, self-motivation, and the ability to deal with change and conflict.

What is I-SBAR-R?

A structured communication strategy: Introduction, Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation, and Readback.

Why is readback important?

It evaluates whether the receiver correctly understood the information and reduces communication errors.

What are important conflict-resolution skills?

Acknowledge the conflict, recognize that positive results can come from conflict, keep debate focused on tasks, promote different perspectives, explore alternatives, share power, and seek win-win solutions.

What are the $5$ conflict-management approaches presented in the lecture?

Withdrawing/avoiding, smoothing/accommodating, forcing/competing, negotiating/compromising, and problem solving/collaborating.

When might withdrawing or avoiding conflict be appropriate?

When the conflict is not your responsibility, little can be done, people need time to calm down, or there is more to lose than gain.

What is negotiating and compromising?

A give-and-take approach that balances factors, minimizes losses, allows each party to gain something, and is useful when goals are incompatible.

Why is problem solving and collaborating often considered the best conflict approach?

It encourages participants to work toward common goals and consensus and can produce a win-win outcome.

What is an electronic health record (EHR)?

A digital patient record containing information such as medical history, diagnoses, medications, treatment plans, immunizations, allergies, radiology images, and laboratory/test results.

What are major benefits of an EHR?

Accurate and up-to-date information, safer prescribing, legible documentation, streamlined coding/billing, and secure sharing of information.

What is a personal health record (PHR)?

An electronic application through which patients can maintain and manage their health information in a private, secure, confidential environment.

What are the $2$ types of personal health records?

Standalone PHRs and tethered/connected PHRs.

What is a standalone PHR?

A personal record in which patients enter information from their own records and store it on a computer or the Internet; patients choose what to share.

What is a tethered/connected PHR?

A PHR linked to a specific healthcare organization's EHR system that allows patients to access their records through a secure portal.

What health information is important for patients and healthcare providers to know?

Medical history, diagnoses, reproductive history, high-risk behaviors, surgical history, family history, and current medications.