Collaboration With Patients Through Communication
When patients are interviewed after receiving ventilatory support, the frustration experienced surrounding communication attempts with health care staff and family members is conveyed quite frequently.4 Grossbach, Stranberg, and Chlan2 have provided detailed information on strategies for promoting effective communication in nonverbal patients receiving mechanical ventilation. In order for communication enhancement strategies to become more meaningful and central in the delivery of patient care, we propose that communication strategies be routinely highlighted in shift change reports and assessments of ventilator patients.
Each patient should have a communication plan2 in place, which can be revised on a routine basis depending on the patient’s condition, that outlines the patient’s preferences and serves as a tool for conveying individual patients’ needs to staff. Reminders for busy nurses to establish and/or update the communication plan could be accomplished by practice-based computer alerts or assessment reminders for developing and revising a communication plan for each patient. Low-tech interventions like paper and a non-permanent felt-tipped marker with a clipboard, a picture board, or common phrases board can be effective to convey basic needs of patients. Last, a handy Communication Pocket Guide2 summarizes important strategies for nurses to use when communication challenges become a source of frustration for a patient and/or nursing staff.