Editor's
Why effective communication is important in healthcare?
Effective communication is an important part of all of our lives, but never so much as when we're talking to clinical staff. Effective communication in healthcare is critical for the correct staff to device understanding, correct medical device diagnosis, effective repair solution, legal processes and medical device safety.
Effective communication in the hospital is incredibly important in aiding in the correct diagnosis of a patient’s condition. It is very important that the healthcare clinicians, the medical devices, and the patients are synergistically communicating with everyone. If the equipment is not properly used, inconsistent or limited in the calibrated parameters of its intended to in order to provide regarding a patients known symptoms and past experiences, the diagnosis the healthcare providers comes up with may be inaccurate due to human factors, leading to mistreatment of the patient’s condition by the medical device.
History
As a biomed, it is important to listen to clinical staff issues as well as to rule out all possible solutions by being very clear in communicating the medical devices history with the healthcare staff. Staff should provide you critical information while the patient is in the hospital and connected to the device such as, “what time the issue occurred?”, “did you write down the error codes?”, “what supplies were used?”, “Were there any other staff around?”, “Is the problem intermittent?”. Failure to effectively communicate these parts of a medical device history can put a patient's life at risk. For example, failure to ask repeated questions and simply writing off an intermittent problem as "no problem found" is bad business. Ask was the unit accidentally dropped? If so, there was vibration to the device and its internal components as a result of the fall. Inspect the inside for loose wires, IC chips, bent or broken pins etc.
Medical Device Information
Effective communication is important for legal issues prevention while under the care of a medical device for treatment. A thorough understanding of problems and solutions must be established before a biomed can proceed. Documentation of all communications can become important should something go wrong. Documentation of the entire communication log within the Computer Maintenance Management System must take place without bias in order to provide a defense for the hospital or ammunition for the plaintiff.
Staff and patient communication
Communication with staff and patients is critical for advanced medical device repairs. Historical information gathered can help keep track of things and provide quick resolutions to other Biomeds while you're gone. Information can inform biomed on the need to stockpile certain parts, ultimately saving costs, reducing equipment downtimes, and increasing patient safety.