Communication Checklists
Guidelines to Improve Care and Reduce Errors

Program Description

Healthcare is often hectic and overwhelming. One way to reduce this complexity is by creating step-by-step guidelines for handling communication in a healthcare environment to protect patient safety. Checklists help manage every aspect of the patient's experience in the healthcare system. This in-depth session covers all the vital communication functions that take place in a healthcare setting including: interviewing and educating patients; intake and discharge; phone and email communication; and healthcare professionals communicating with each other (such as "hand off communication").

Program Objectives

1. Demonstrate checklists for interviewing and educating patients.
2. Explain the checklists used during the intake and discharge process.
3. Apply the checklists for phone and email communications.
4. Practice the checklists used with professional-professional communication.

Program Outline

• Checklists for interviewing and educating patients
  • Opening the interview
  • Closing the interview
  • Components of the educational process
• Checklists for the intake and discharge process
  • Intake procedure
  • Discharge method
• Checklists for phone and email communications
  • Information to include in phone calls (including “talk back”)
  • Voicemail components
  • Email components
• Checklists for professional-professional communication
  • Sequence of providing patient information

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