Reading material on improving patient communication, cross-cultural aspect (abstract)

A term interprofessional collaboration is used in this learning module to describe cooperation between occupational groups representing different professions.  

Interprofessional collaboration is necessary to provide optimal and effective patient care and improve the quality of health care. It means that health care professionals with different specialties, different areas of expertise and work, and a different level of status all work together to provide high-quality, patient-oriented care. It also ensures that the patient benefits from the specific skills of each individual profession (Mahler et al 2014) 

Interprofessional communication used in interprofessional collaboration must be working well to maintain the quality of care. Ineffective communication in healthcare results in different kinds of patient harm and adverse effects (Foronda et al. 2016, Hunter et al 2021). In addition to being able to communicate professionally with patients, families, communities, it is as important to be able to communicate with all professionals in health and other fields in a responsive and responsible manner. This supports the approach to the promotion and maintenance of health and the prevention and treatment of disease or disorder (Interprofessional Education Collaborative 2016) 

A high quality, patient-centred care can be assured by culturally appropriate communication between health care professionals and with patients. In cross-cultural situations, cultural competency is very important for effective cooperation between health care professionals and their patients. (Hunter, Majd, Kowalski & Harnett. 2021) 

Additional materials are available in the e-manual.