The Future Of Nuclear Security: A Medical Physicist’S Perspective, Katharine E. Thomson

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Planning for the future of nuclear security is a vital and complex task, requiring cooperation and contribution from many disciplines and industries. This diversity of expertise should include the medical sector, which faces many of the same challenges as the nuclear industry: controlling access to dangerous material, creating a strong security culture, cooperating with the wider world and engaging the public.

Medical physicists, of which the author is one, oversee all aspects of small-scale radiation use. This paper discusses three key areas increasingly important to both medical and nuclear uses of radioactive materials: public engagement, prevention of nuclear and radiological …

Effects Of A Hospital-Wide Physician Communication Skills Training Workshop On Self-Efficacy, Attitudes And Behavior, Minna Saslaw, Dana R. Sirota, Deborah P. Jones, Marcy Rosenbaum, Steven Kaplan

Patient Experience Journal

Hospital systems interested in improving patient experience and physician engagement may look to physician communication skills training (CST) as a means of improving both. This study examines a 7.5-hour, multi-specialty, hospital-wide physician CST workshop in a large academic hospital system and its effects on participants’ self-efficacy, attitudes, and behaviors related to communicating with patients. Data was gathered from October 2014 through June 2016 through a web-based questionnaire sent to participants 6-weeks post-workshop which focused on skills taught in the course, attitudes toward communication training, and provider behaviors when communicating with patients. Along with demographic questions, a ten question retrospective pre-post …

Patient And Provider Experiences With Relationship, Information, And Management Continuity, Jeanette Jackson, Gail Mackean, Tim Cooke, Markus Lahtinen

Patient Experience Journal

From 2003 to 2014, the Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) monitored patient experiences with healthcare services through a biennial Satisfaction and Experience with Healthcare Services (SEHCS) survey. The findings consistently showed a direct link between coordination of care, an aspect of continuity of care, and healthcare outcomes. Specifically, it showed that better coordination is linked to positive outcomes; the reverse is also true. Given the critical role continuity of care plays in the healthcare system, the HQCA conducted in-depth interviews, interactive feedback sessions and focus groups with patients and providers to explore factors that influence both seamless and fragmented …

Healthcare Providers Versus Patients' Understanding Of Health Beliefs And Values, Betty M. Kennedy, Matloob Rehman, William D. Johnson, Michelle B. Magee, Robert Leonard, Peter T. Katzmarzyk

Patient Experience Journal

This study examined how well healthcare providers perceive and understand their patients’ health beliefs and values compared to patients’ actual beliefs, and to determine if communication relationships maybe improved as a result of healthcare providers’ understanding of their patients’ illness from their perspective. A total of 61 participants (7 healthcare providers and 54 patients) were enrolled in the study. Healthcare providers and patients individually completed survey instruments and each participated in a structured focus group. Healthcare provider and patient differences revealed that patients perceived greater meaning of their illness (p = 0.038), and a greater preference for partnership (p = …

Developing A Mobile Application: Improving Health Care Students’ Ability To Communicate, Kiersten Walters, Ilya Rybakov, Patricia L. Darbishire

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

The purpose of this project was to develop, pilot, assess, and describe a new interdisciplinary, game-based phone application. The application is intended to help health care students better communicate medication and medical terminology to their patients and to other health care providers and insurance companies. This IRB-approved project called “PharmPhrase” was developed using an application-development software program. The pilot involved multiple groups of competing teams composed of volunteer pharmacy students in their first professional years who were randomly assigned into teams of three to five. The PharmPhrase user explains a randomly generated medical term to team members based on assumptions …

Every Word, Every Gesture, Dennis J. Baumgardner

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Two nonverbal patients teach a novice clinician the power and often hidden impact of the physician-patient relationship.

Lack Of Patient Involvement In Care Decisions And Not Receiving Written Discharge Instructions Are Associated With Unplanned Readmissions Up To One Year, Kyle A. Kemp, Hude Quan, Maria J. Santana

Patient Experience Journal

This retrospective, cross-sectional study examined the relationship between aspects of inpatient communication and discharge instructions and unplanned, all-cause readmissions using individual-level data up to one-year post-discharge. Patients completed the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) telephone survey within 6 weeks of hospital discharge in Alberta, Canada. Survey data were linked to corresponding inpatient records. Independent variables included selected demographic characteristics, clinical variables, and five survey questions: a) patient involvement in care decisions, b) receiving written information at discharge, c) understanding the purpose of taking medications, d) understanding responsibility for one’s health, and e) discussing help needed when …

Zika Virus Communication Preferences Of Pregnant Women: Beyond The Verbal, Mallory Ellingson, Allison T. Chamberlain

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Background: Pregnant women are frequently a priority group during public health emergencies, including the current Zika virus outbreak. These women turn to prenatal care providers for health information, but providers may not have the time for discussions with every patient. Knowing alternative ways to communicate key Zika-related information to pregnant women is important.

Methods: To determine pregnant women’s preferences for obtaining Zika information from their prenatal providers, a 27-item survey was administered to 408 pregnant women at four prenatal care clinics in Atlanta between May 5th, 2016 and June 20th, 2016. The anonymous survey evaluated women’s preferences for receiving information …

Faculty Perceptions Of Communication At An Academic Medical Center: A Faculty Forward Qualitative Analysis, Brian L. Rutledge, Jessica H. Bailey

The Qualitative Report

The purpose of the study is to examine the faculty’s suggestions on how to improve communication at five schools in an academic medical center. The University of Mississippi Medical Center facilitated the administration of the Faculty Forward Engagement Survey by the Association of American Medical Colleges to faculty in the schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, and health related professions. This survey included open-ended questions with narrative responses. On these responses to one question about communication, the authors performed the constant comparative method of grounded theory design, a foundational form of qualitative inquiry. In reviewing and coding the 201 responses, …

An Experience Of Practitioners Navigating The Role Of Patient/Caregiver, Susan M. Shaw, Rain Lamdin

Patient Experience Journal

This journey involved one of us having (repeat) intraspinal surgery in a country far from home but of a similar culture and with the same first language. The carer travelled across the world to be present during the hospital stay. We kept a journal during our admission, and following discharge realised there were significant differences between how we had documented our experience and the record presented in the clinical notes. The particular examples we present illustrate the relationships, rules and issues that we navigated. We share our experience in the form of moments from our journal, some of them alongside …

How Do Money, Sex, And Stress Influence Marital Instability?, E. Jeffrey Hill, David B. Allsop, Ashley B. Lebaron, Roy A. Bean

Journal of Financial Therapy

This study explored how money and sex simultaneously predicted marital instability, and what financial therapists might focus on with clients to address problems in these areas. Specifically, this paper concurrently examined the relationship of marital instability to financial and family stressors (financial stressors, work-family conflict, and parenting stressors); financial and sexual resources (couple income and couple sexual frequency); and financial and sexual perceptions (financial dissatisfaction and sexual dissatisfaction). Couple financial communication and couple relational communication were explored as intervention points for financial therapists. Data came from Wave 2 of the Flourishing Families data set (N = 301). Data were organized …

Structured Communication Intervention To Reduce Anxiety Of Family Members Waiting For Relatives Undergoing Surgical Procedures, Kathryn Kynoch, Linda Crowe, Annie Mcardle, Judy Munday, Cj Cabilan, Sonia Hines

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

Perioperative nurses recognise that family members experience increased levels of anxiety during the wait for a relative undergoing a surgical procedure. It is often during this time that little or no meaningful communication occurs between family members and health professionals. It has been suggested that a structured information intervention has the potential to increase communication between families and health care professionals as well as decrease family members’ anxiety.

The aim of this study was to establish the effect of a structured communication program on anxiety of family members’ awaiting relatives undergoing surgical procedures. A quasi-experimental design was used with a …

Did You Hear What I Meant To Say?, Dennis J. Baumgardner

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

The author introduces Volume 4, Issue 1 of Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews by acknowledging the importance of communication between patient and caregiver in the clinical setting. Failure to communicate effectively can have a negative impact on a patient's well-being, therefore efforts to improve communication skills among clinicians, researchers and health practice administrators should be undertaken with regularity.