The Discourse Of Hospital Communication

Bringing together recent international research in the field of hospital communication and interaction, the contributors to this book contextualize clinical professional work by focussing on the rising intensity of information and communication practices in organizations generally, and in health care in particular.

Bringing together recent international research in the field of hospital communication and interaction, this book contextualises clinical-professional work by focusing on the rising intensity of information and communication practices in organisations generally, and in health care in particular. The contributions show how hospital work is performed and communicated, and what the hospital's extreme organisational complexity means for traditional approaches to discourse analysis, communication research and activity theory. Work is also presented from a group of clinician and health services researchers who have turned to using language-based and micro-sociological research methods. The result is a rich resource for students and scholars in both applied linguistics and management, interested in discourse analysis and professional communication. The book will also appeal to researchers and students in the field of health research more broadly, acquainting them with approaches to a detailed analysis of hospital-clinical interaction and communication.

This book is the result of years of fieldwork at a public hospital located in an immigrant neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It focuses on the relationships between diversity and inequality in access to mental healthcare through the discourse practices, tactics and strategies deployed by patients with widely varying cultural, linguistic and social backgrounds. As an action-research process, it helped change communicative practices at the Hospital’s outpatient mental healthcare service. The book focuses on the entire process and its outcomes, arguing in favor of a critical, situated perspective on discourse analysis, theoretically and practically oriented to social change. It also proposes a different approach to doctor-patient communication, usually conducted from an ethnocentric perspective which does not take into account cultural, social and economic diversity. It reviews many topics that are somehow classical in doctor-patient communication analysis, but from a different point of view: issues such as the sequential organization of primary care encounters, diagnostic formulations, asymmetry and accommodation, etc., are now examined from a locally grounded ethnographic perspective. This change is not only theoretical but also political, as it helps understand patient practices of resistance, identity-making and solidarity in contexts of inequality.

Communication within the context of health and social care faces many challenges. Our understanding of how language and communication information is processed by the brain is increasing our awareness of the complexities involved and the influence of normal ageing on communication processing. Care systems are becoming more complex and service users demand more information and choice. At the same time, the range of service users encountered by practitioners includes more people with varied language backgrounds, and greater language and cultural diversity is occurring among health and social care staff. This volume explores current challenges to achieving effective communication in health and social care. It outlines how practitioners communicate, innovative methods for teaching communication skills, and methodologies to include children and people with communication difficulties in research and in consultation processes about healthcare. Particular communication issues, within the context of healthcare, for population groups such as older people, asylum seekers, young offenders and people with mental health problems are also addressed.

This book was conceived in response to the increasing recognition of the central role of communication in effective healthcare delivery, particularly in high-stress contexts. Over a three-year period, the research team investigated communication between patients and clinicians in five representative emergency departments (EDs). The book describes the communicative complexity and intensity of work in the ED and identifies the features of successful patient-clinician interactions. Drawing on authentic examples of communication within the ED, the book provides comprehensive communication strategies for healthcare professionals that can be readily integrated into everyday practice. ‘Professor Diana Slade and her colleagues have written an innovative and practical book on communication and relationships in emergency departments and their effects on the patient experience. Rarely does one find a book that so seamlessly translates research findings into practical action strategies. The book is an invaluable resource for the training of physicians, nurses, hospital administrators and others in healthcare.’ - Elizabeth A. Rider, MSW, MD, FAAP, Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School ‘My participation in the UTS Emergency Communication project provided extraordinary insights into the complexities and subtleties of communication encounters during a patient’s emergency department journey. This project has made a lasting impact on my daily work, and I hope will improve emergency patient care into the future.’ - Dr Nick Taylor, Emergency Medicine Specialist, The Canberra Hospital ‘The captured clinical conversations between doctors, nurses and patients are fascinating... The discussion and conclusions provide a rare insight into an integral and critical component of Emergency Medicine practice. The team, led by Professor Slade, was truly unobtrusive, professional and personable.’ - Dr Marian Lee, Emergency Physician, Director of Emergency Medicine Training

What is evidence-based health communication and how does it benefit patients? How has communication been taught to health professionals and how might it be improved? How can health care professionals make the most of short encounters in order to maximise their therapeutic effectiveness for clients? This book provides a comprehensive and critical review of the field of health communication and the kinds of evidence that have been collected concerning effective communication. It also critically evaluates the kinds of training health professionals receive in communication skills and examines its relatively limited role in the curriculum. In addition it sets out what has been discovered about the micro-structure of interaction in health care encounters. The book offers vital new agendas for research training and practice in health care, based upon lessons learned from linguistics, using a wide variety of gathered evidence to identify patterns that will lead to improved health care practices. Moreover, the book focuses upon brief, ordinary and effective communicative activity in addition to the formal consultations that have been studied by researchers in the past. Evidence-based Health Communicationis key reading for trainee health professionals as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of health studies, medical sociology and health psychology. It also provides stimulating reading for health care professionals, policy makers and researchers with an interest in improving health communication.

This textbook aims to bring together many of the various linguistic strands in health communication, while maintaining an interdisciplinary focus on method and theory.

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Health Communication consists of forty chapters that provide a broad, comprehensive, and systematic overview of the role that linguistics plays within health communication research and its applications. The Handbook is divided into three sections: Individuals’ everyday health communication Health professionals’ communicative practices Patient-provider communication in interaction Special attention is given to cross-cutting themes, including the role of technology in health communication, narrative, and observations of authentic, naturally-occurring contexts. The chapters are written by international authorities representing a wide range of perspectives and approaches. Building on established work with cutting-edge studies on the changing health communication landscape, this volume will be an essential reference for all those involved in health communication and applied linguistics research and practice.