Why is communication an important skill for health professionals ?

and what are the consequences of good and poor communication?Why is communication an important skill for health professionals ?
I once did an essay on this for my Academy of Health Careers.



Communication is the BIGGEST skill you need to be in the health profession. Why?



Think about what would happen if you were working in a hospital and you had a patient come into the ER who was suffering a life threatening situation. He's only got roughly 20 minutes for you to stop a hemorrhage (severe bleeding) The only problem is: He speaks Portuguese.



He's trying to tell you what exactly happen, but you don't understand. Minutes are ticking by. Do you have a translator on duty?





This is not just an important skill in the medical field, but in any profession.



Put yourself in this situation: You're a captain of a bomb squad. You've been called to deactivate a bomb that could explode and demolish 10 blocks. You're trusting your partner on the other side of your headset to provide you with the correct information about the device. Do you clip the red wire? The blue? The green? If he were to hesitate for even a second, or to start to tell you the wrong color, you're in danger as well as thousands of people.



It may seem like a very big exaggeration, but you've always got to think of little things in a bigger picture, because the little things may seem very insignificant.



Without communication, you cannot help the patient. A lot of times, in the health care profession, time is off the essence... so you must make sure that you have a clear line of communication as to avoid any unnecessary obstacles.Why is communication an important skill for health professionals ?
History is 80% of patient care. Diagnosing a patient depends on asking the right questions. Scans can only get you so far, and you need a history in order to even know which scans you need. Patients don't tend to volunteer everything that's important--they don't necessarily know what's relevant and what isn't. Here's an example.



What the patient tells you: "My abdomen hurts"

What this could mean: pretty much anything.

Someone with good communication skills asks when it started, what they've been eating, when they had a bowel movement, (if the patient is a woman) if they could be pregnant, where exactly it hurts, what the pain feels like, if they have been nauseous or dizzy lately, if they are having any trouble breathing, if their chest/back/neck/jaw/legs/pelvis/head hurts, what they've eaten recently, if they take any prescription drugs, if they take any recreational drugs, if they have done anything to make the pain better, if anything relieves it or makes it worse....

Someone with poor communication skills: palpates the abdomen to see if it's rigid.



The person with communication skills never even touched the patient, but they have already considered appendicitis, ovarian cysts, abdominal aortic rupture, ectopic pregnancy, drug overdose, bowel obstruction, possible cardiac implications, and more.



The person without communication skills has considered internal bleeding.



Let's say the person has a burst appendix. From the history, the communicative healthcare professional figures it out first. The one who didn't ask the right questions will waste their time with all types of scans, wasting precious time.