Improving patient–provider communication (Hurtig et al., 2019)

<div><b>Purpose:</b> Many hospitalized patients experience barriers</div><div>to effective patient–provider communication that can</div><div>negatively impact their care. These barriers include difficulty</div><div>physically accessing the nurse call system, communicating</div><div>about pain and other needs, or both. For many patients,</div><div>these barriers are a result of their admitting condition and</div><div>not of an underlying chronic disability. Speech-language</div><div>pathologists have begun to address patients’ short-term</div><div>communication needs with an array of augmentative and</div><div>alternative communication (AAC) strategies.</div><div><b>Method: </b>This study used a between-groups experimental</div><div>design to evaluate the impact of providing patients</div><div>with AAC systems so that they could summon help and</div><div>communicate with their nurses. The study examined</div><div>patients’ and nurses’ perceptions of the patients’ ability to</div><div>summon help and effectively communicate with caregivers.</div><div><b>Results: </b>Patients who could summon their nurses and</div><div>effectively communicate—with or without AAC—had</div><div>significantly more favorable perceptions than those who</div><div>could not.</div><div><b>Conclusions: </b>This study suggests that AAC can be</div><div>successfully used in acute care settings to help patients</div><div>overcome access and communication barriers. Working</div><div>with other members of the health care team is essential</div><div>to building a “culture of communication” in acute care</div><div>settings.</div><div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b>Supplemental Material S1.</b> Noddle communication device.</div><div><br></div><div>Hurtig, R. R., Alper, R., Bryant, K., Davidson, K., & Bilskemper, C. (2019). Improving patient safety and<br>patient–provider communication. <i>Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. </i>Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_PERS-SIG12-2019-0021</div></div>