Turning the page on hospital communications slowly

In hospitals, breakdowns in communication has been found to be a major source of errors.1 Communication between clinicians can occur at scheduled times or rounds, through face-to-face meetings or may be facilitated through the use of communication tools such as pagers. For the latter, often urgent communication between clinicians about a patient is required. Problems in communication can result in a failure to rescue or result in poor coordination of care.2 In this issue of the journal, two articles describe the communication process within hospitals from different perspectives. Carlile et al3 looked at paging from the physician's perspective and analysed 1252 pages sent to internal medicine residents within an academic medical centre. They found that paging still occurs frequently, with residents receiving an average of 22 times per day at an average rate of 2.2 pages per hour. Approximately 75% of pages were...
Source: BMJ Quality and Safety - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Editorials Source Type: research