Interaction with reception staff is often the first impression a patient has of a hospital. Lack of communication is also often the root cause of most incidents that occur in a hospital. In the current scenario of customer-centered healthcare, communication plays a fundamental role in a hospital. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most common and overlooked problem areas in most hospitals.

Communication can be a very effective tool to improve patient satisfaction in a hospital. Hospital feedback forms often reflect issues where inadequate or inadequate communication is the root cause. Long discharge time is a common cause of patient dissatisfaction in most hospitals, however, one of the main causes of confusion could be that the patient or patient’s family member was not initially explained about the process discharge and the time necessary for it and, therefore, expects a discharge at the time the doctor orders it. Similarly, if patients are informed in advance about the expected time of delay and the reasons for the delay in a DPO, they are less likely to complain about waiting time and services in the hospital. Patient Safety is another area that is largely related to communication. Improving effective communication is also one of the patient safety goals. Even a small error during handover between shifts can affect patient safety. Similarly, critical test values ​​must be communicated instantly to the consultant concerned and in the event of a code blue, it is essential to alert the code blue team or relevant personnel. In a healthcare setting where the result of a critical test or a change in a patient’s condition can be a matter of life and death, the importance of communication cannot be stressed enough.

Some strategies for effective communication in hospitals:

• Staff should be trained in soft skills for better patient management. Rude staff and inadequate information and attention from staff are frequent complaints from patients at the registration and consultation desk during peak patient flow hours.

• The hospital should plan and prepare for communication strategies in situations where enhanced communication is required and train its staff for the same, eg sudden death of a patient, violent relatives of the patient, etc.

It is also important that family members of patients are regularly updated on the patient’s condition.

• Senior management and clinical staff should always encourage an open channel of communication with frontline staff. There have been incidents in hospitals where patient care was compromised because nurses were afraid to contact the doctor. A good communication culture in the organization also improves employee satisfaction, as it improves transparency and increases accountability.

• A good flow of intra and interdepartmental information is essential to improve the efficiency of hospital services. The trends of quality indicators, the results of audits and the results of patient feedback must be communicated to the relevant personnel, without which the activity is useless.

External and internal communication plays an important role in setting up a hospital where timeliness, adequacy, accuracy, and completeness of information can play a vital role in preventing errors and saving a life. After all, no matter how good the clinical care is, it will be useless if it is not adequately communicated to the patient.