Joint Commission Aims to Clarify Communication With Patients

Communication between physicians and patients is not always what it should be, which can lead to errors and put patients at risk, according to a public policy report recently released by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, known as the Joint Commission.

"'What Did the Doctor Say?': Improving Health Literacy to Protect Patient Safety" (PDF file: 64 pages / 992 KB. More about PDFs.) uses personal vignettes to illustrate communication problems, possible causes for those problems and solutions.

"Effective communication is a cornerstone of patient safety," said Dennis O'Leary, M.D., president of the Joint Commission, in a press release. "If patients lack basic understanding of their conditions and the whats and whys of the treatments prescribed, therapeutic goals can never be realized, and patients may instead be placed in harm's way."

The solutions developed by an expert roundtable focus on making effective communications a priority, looking at patient communications needs across a spectrum of care, and changing public policy to promote better communication between patients and their caregivers.

In the paper, the Joint Commission recommends 35 actions to improve communication with patients and increase patient literacy, including

The report also includes a table listing a dozen patient communication goals, including requirements for their implementation, potential impact and possible solutions, and a chart detailing tactics to make effective communications an organizational priority.