Patient Safety in Psychiatry-2.6 Working Toward Self Care

Video Transcription

Our last chapter is Chapter 6, Communication with Patients and Families as Team Members.  The patient safety quality improvement culture indicates the need to build teamwork and communication into interactions with patients and families.  Whether you're thinking about this in terms of patient-centered care or simply in terms of the idea that the patient and their family are members of the team, these are important  new attitudes that we can take that can improve patient safety, and we'll talk about some specific communications that are important.  Sometimes communication can be easy and fruitful, and sometimes it is not so easy. Some communications that do matter a great deal towards patient safety include informed  consent, making referrals, the disclosure of error, as discussed earlier, the disclosure  of bad news regardless of error, the communication of lab results, and the inclusion of the family.  The patient safety culture encourages us to take all of these forms of communication seriously and to pay attention to their elements.  Informed consent can often be a vital piece of a treatment plan, and when informed consent has not been done and an adverse event has occurred, families and patients are usually  cognizant of that fact. Similarly, referrals need to be done in a manner that can be done consistently and that  accurately provides the patient with the information as to how to make that transition or that additional consultation.  We talked about the disclosure of error and how important it is, and that can usually be helpful not only to gather information but also to maintain the patient or the patient's  family as part of care. To not receive lab results or imaging results consistently is another major source of error,  and a good quality improvement project that is always ripe to be done. Finally, including the family as a part of the team pervades all of these communications  and all patient-centered care, and it's always a good practice to be able to do in order to maintain good communication channels and good interactions with patients and families.

Video Summary

In this video, Chapter 6 discusses the importance of communication with patients and their families as team members in the context of patient safety and quality improvement. It emphasizes the need to build teamwork and effective communication into interactions with patients and families. Key forms of communication for patient safety include informed consent, making referrals, disclosure of errors and bad news, communication of lab results, and involving the family. These communications should be taken seriously and given attention. Informed consent is crucial for treatment plans, and failure to provide it can lead to adverse events. Referrals should be consistent and provide accurate information. Disclosure of errors helps gather information and maintain patient involvement. Consistently providing lab results is essential to avoid errors, and including the family as part of the team improves communication and patient-centered care.

Keywords

communication with patients

communication with families

team members

patient safety

quality improvement