Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Just Culture: It's More Than Policy, Linda Ann Paradiso, Nancy Sweeney

Publications and Research

Any healthcare organization’s top priority is effective and safe care. Despite this, medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the US. Hospitals are imperfect systems where nurses have competing demands and are forced to improvise and develop workarounds. Errors rarely occur in a vacuum, rather they’re a sequence of events with multiple opportunities for correction. Clinical nurses can have a significant impact on reducing errors due to their proximity to patients. When errors are identified, the events and impact on safe care need to be shared. Just culture is a safe haven that supports reporting. In a just …

Delirium Reduction Strategies For The Critically Ill, June Chaves, Sam Canonico, Will Cheney, Tammy Corey, Gil Fraser, Alex Kowalewski, Jen Low, Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, Haley Pelletier, Cathy Palleschi, Stephen Tyzik, Suneela Nayak, Ruth Hanselman

MaineHealth Maine Medical Center

Delirium, an acute and fluctuating disturbance of consciousness and cognition, is a common manifestation of acute brain dysfunction in critically ill patients. Patients with delirium have longer hospital stays and a lower 6-month survival rate than do patients without delirium. Preliminary research suggests that delirium may be associated with cognitive impairment that persists months to years after discharge.

In a large acute care hospital, the cardiac intensive care staff became interested in mitigating their unit’s high delirium rate of ventilated patients. At baseline, many members of the healthcare team did not believe that delirium could be prevented and the predominant …

Augmentative And Alternative Communication In The Intensive Care Unit, Jonathan Todd Sizemore

Online Theses and Dissertations

Current research is lacking on the frequency of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system use in intensive care units (ICU) and clinical decision making patterns. AAC is use of any alternative method of communication when oral communication cannot be achieved (ASHA, 2013). Patients in the ICU may become nonverbal for many reasons including tracheostomy, mechanical ventilation (McKinley, Pooke, & White, 2010) and intubation (Radtke, Bauman, Garrett, & Happ, 2011). Being nonverbal in the ICU may lead to poorer health outcomes (Patak, Wilson-Stronks, & Costello, 2009). AAC systems may improve outcomes by allowing patients to communicate more clearly with family, friends, …

A Comunicação Da Equipe De Enfermagem Com O Paciente Em Cuidados Paliativos; The Communication Of The Nursing Team With Patients In Palliative Care, Everton Fernando Alves

Everton Fernando Alves

The article consists of a contextualized reflection on the communication in palliative care with the purpose of explaining strategies used for effective communication among the nursing, terminally ill and his family. In that sense, it was observed that for the nurse to assist the terminally ill is a difficult task, which raises sensation of sadness, frustration, impotence and even failure in the rendered attendance. This way, many professionals use denial, escaping, and the apparent coldness as defense mechanisms to cope with situation. Throughout this discussion are exposed some aspects that enable developing empathic communication skills, perceived as a task that …