Communicating Clearly About Medicines

Research conducted over the past two decades has shown that poor patient understanding of medication instructions is an important contributor to the more than 1 million medication errors and adverse drug events that lead to office and emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and even death. Patients who have limited literacy skills, who have multiple comorbidities, and who are elderly face the greatest risk, and limited literacy skills are significantly associated with inadequate understanding and use of prescription instructions and precautions. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality notes that only 12 percent of U.S. adults have proficient health literacy that allows them to interpret a prescription label correctly. Given the importance of health literacy to the proper use of medications, and the apparent lack of progress in improving medication adherence, the Roundtable on Health Literacy formed an ad hoc committee to plan and conduct a 1-day public workshop that featured invited presentations and discussion of the role and challenges regarding clarity of communication on medication. Participants focused on using health literacy principles to address clarity of materials, decision aids, and other supportive tools and technologies regarding risks, benefits, alternatives, and health plan coverage. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Scientific communication is challenging. The subject matter is complex and often requires a certain level of knowledge to understand it correctly; describing hazard ratios, interpreting Kaplan Meier curves and explaining confounding factors is different from talking about a new car or clothing range. Processes, for example in clinical trials, are laborious and tedious and knowing how much of the detail to include and exclude requires judgement. Conclusions are rarely clear cut making communicating statistical risk and probability tough, especially to non-statisticians and non-scientists such as journalists. Communicating Clearly about Science and Medicine looks at these and many more challenges, then introduces powerful techniques for overcoming them. It will help you develop and deliver impactful presentations on medical and scientific data and tell a clear, compelling story based on your research findings. It will show you how to develop clear messages and themes, while adhering to the advice attributed to Einstein: 'Make things as simple as possible...but no simpler.' John Clare illustrates how to communicate clearly the risks and benefits contained in a complex data set, and balance the hope and the hype. He explains how to avoid the 'miracle cure' or 'killer drug' headlines which are so common and teaches you how to combine the accuracy of peer-to-peer reviewed science with the narrative skills of journalism.

Science and technology are embedded in virtually every aspect of modern life. As a result, people face an increasing need to integrate information from science with their personal values and other considerations as they make important life decisions about medical care, the safety of foods, what to do about climate change, and many other issues. Communicating science effectively, however, is a complex task and an acquired skill. Moreover, the approaches to communicating science that will be most effective for specific audiences and circumstances are not obvious. Fortunately, there is an expanding science base from diverse disciplines that can support science communicators in making these determinations. Communicating Science Effectively offers a research agenda for science communicators and researchers seeking to apply this research and fill gaps in knowledge about how to communicate effectively about science, focusing in particular on issues that are contentious in the public sphere. To inform this research agenda, this publication identifies important influences â€" psychological, economic, political, social, cultural, and media-related â€" on how science related to such issues is understood, perceived, and used.

Highly Commended at the British Medical Association Book Awards 2016 Clinical Communication in Medicine brings together the theories, models and evidence that underpin effective healthcare communication in one accessible volume. Endorsed and developed by members of the UK Council of Clinical Communication in Undergraduate Medical Education, it traces the subject to its primary disciplinary origins, looking at how it is practised, taught and learned today, as well as considering future directions. Focusing on three key areas – the doctor-patient relationship, core components of clinical communication, and effective teaching and assessment – Clinical Communication in Medicine enhances the understanding of effective communication. It links theory to teaching, so principles and practice are clearly understood. Clinical Communication in Medicine is a new and definitive guide for professionals involved in the education of medical undergraduate students and postgraduate trainees, as well as experienced and junior clinicians, researchers, teachers, students, and policy makers.

The Fifth Edition of Communication Skills in Pharmacy Practice helps pharmacy and pharmacy technician students learn the principles, skills, and practices that are the foundation for clear communication and the essential development of trust between them and their future patients. This text's logical organization guides students from theory and basic principles to practical skills development to the application of those skills in everyday encounters. Sample dialogues show students how to effectively communicate and practical exercises fine tune their communication skills in dealing with a variety of sensitive situations that arise in pharmacy practice NEW TO THE FIFTH EDITION: New Pharmacy and Pharmacy Technician Instructor's Manuals available on the textbook's thePoint site help faculty administer and deliver their courses. New chapter on medication safety and communication skills (Chapter 9) offers strategies to reduce medication errors and protect patient safety. New chapter on electronic communication in healthcare (Chapter 13) provides guidelines to avoid common misunderstandings via email and the Internet. Expanded coverage of communication skills and interprofessional collaboration (Chapter 12) helps students learn how to effectively interact with other members of the healthcare team New photographs, illustrations, and tables visually engage students and enhance learning and retention of important concepts.

In 1996 the Institute of Medicine launched the Quality Chasm Series, a series of reports focused on assessing and improving the nation's quality of health care. Preventing Medication Errors is the newest volume in the series. Responding to the key messages in earlier volumes of the seriesâ€"To Err Is Human (2000), Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), and Patient Safety (2004)â€"this book sets forth an agenda for improving the safety of medication use. It begins by providing an overview of the system for drug development, regulation, distribution, and use. Preventing Medication Errors also examines the peer-reviewed literature on the incidence and the cost of medication errors and the effectiveness of error prevention strategies. Presenting data that will foster the reduction of medication errors, the book provides action agendas detailing the measures needed to improve the safety of medication use in both the short- and long-term. Patients, primary health care providers, health care organizations, purchasers of group health care, legislators, and those affiliated with providing medications and medication- related products and services will benefit from this guide to reducing medication errors.

Clinical Communication Skills for Medicine is an essential guide to the core skills for effective patient-centered communication. In the twenty years since this book was first published the teaching of these skills has developed and evolved. Today’s doctors fully appreciate the importance of communicating successfully and sensitively with people receiving health care and those close to them. This practical guide to developing communication skills will be of value to students throughout their careers. The order of the chapters reflects this development, from core skills to those required to respond effectively and compassionately in challenging situations. The text includes case examples, guidelines and opportunities to encourage the reader to stop and think. The contents of the book cover: The fundamental elements of clinical communication, including skills for effectively gathering and sharing information, discussing sensitive topics and breaking bad news. Shared decision making, reflecting the rapid changes in expectations of medical care and skills for supporting patients in making decisions which are right for them. Communicating with a patient’s family, children and young people, patients from different cultural backgrounds, communicating via an interpreter and communicating with patients who have a hearing impairment. Diversity in communication, including examples of communicating with patients who have a learning disability, transgender patients, and older adult patients. Communicating about medical error, emphasising the importance of doctors being honest in the face of difficult situations. This is a practical guide to learning and developing communication skills throughout medical training. The chapters range from the development of basic skills to those dealing with challenging and difficult situations.

With patient experience at the forefront of health care, effective communication of health messages is critical to quality care. This book offers proven strategies to help providers clearly explain health information to a variety of audiences, from patients and caregivers, to students and the public.