According to Communication Systems in Healthcare, several studies have found that more than 50% (and up to 100% in some instances) of medical information about patients is conveyed through interpersonal communication. That points us to one certain fact: there’s a significant need for effective communication strategies in healthcare settings. Here’s how clinics, hospitals, and other medical institutions can improve communication—and how professional medical transcription companies can help.
In this article, you’ll learn how:
- Clear communication minimizes medical errors, enhances patient satisfaction, and strengthens trust between healthcare providers and patients.
- Healthcare providers should engage in workshops, seek feedback, and adapt to diverse patient needs, including language barriers.
- Professional medical transcription services with high accuracy rates and HIPAA compliance are essential for maintaining clear and effective communication within healthcare settings.
Why Should Healthcare Professionals Bother With Communication Strategies?
Effective communication can be applied to almost every human endeavor that involves someone else. For the medical field, here are the most important benefits:
| Reason | Explanation |
| Enhances Patient Safety | Clear communication minimizes misinterpretations that could lead to patient harm. |
| Improves Patient Satisfaction | Patients feel heard and understood, leading to a better overall experience. |
| Reduces Medical Errors | Accurate documentation and structured communication reduce errors. |
| Strengthens Patient-Provider Trust | Open, honest communication builds trust between patients and healthcare providers. |
| Facilitates Efficient Team Collaboration | Effective handoffs and structured communication improve teamwork efficiency. |
| Ensures Compliance with Regulations | Ensures adherence to privacy laws (e.g., HIPAA) and professional standards. |
| Improves Health Outcomes | Patients better understand their conditions and treatments, leading to improved recovery. |
| Reduces Workplace Stress and Burnout | Clear expectations and teamwork reduce stress among healthcare professionals. |
| Enhances Patient Adherence to Treatment | Patients who understand their treatment plans are more likely to follow them. |
| Supports Informed Decision-Making | Patients make better-informed choices about their healthcare when communication is clear. |
Types of Effective Communication Strategies For Healthcare Professionals
The following techniques can be applied when communicating with patients and medical colleagues, so it’s important to learn them all by heart.
Sharpen Your Active Listening Skills
Active listening is a foundational skill upon which all types of communication are built. It’s a tried-and-tested technique to improve doctor-patient communication—and one of the best ways to get people to trust you.
Here’s a quick rundown of how active listening works:
- Give your full attention to the speaker at all times.
- Use verbal and non-verbal responses to let them know you got the message.
- Repeat or paraphrase key points to avoid misunderstandings.
- Let the speaker share their full concern before speaking.
Communicate Like A Normal Person
Effective patient communication and care requires doctors to speak to their patients to discuss treatments, potential challenges, improvement plans, or specifics like drug interactions. A few new doctors might think it best to dazzle patients with medical knowledge to establish authority and expertise.
However, there’s a whole body of scientific work related to how doctors are perceived when they talk to patients, and talking to them as you would a fellow medical professional is only likely to put a barrier between you.
So, the best practice here is to find a good balance between being a professional and being a human being who can empathize. Avoid medical jargon as much as possible. Don’t speak a hundred words a minute. Break down complex things like medical procedures and treatments into smaller parts that are easy to understand. That way, you ensure that communication between you and the patient does not break down.
Put Your Patients First
Another effective communication strategy is for healthcare professionals to focus on the patients first. This means encouraging them to express concerns, ask questions, and share their preferences on appropriate matters.
You can also ensure the patient understands everything before moving on to the next topic. You can also provide instructions according to their preferences, as some patients might better remember things when you write them down for them.
Continuous Improvement and Training
Like medical training, communication skills must be taken out and sharpened occasionally. Doctors are encouraged to participate in workshops or training sessions to improve their communication skills. Getting feedback from patients and colleagues is also a good place to start, as this can help identify aspects that need improvement.
In some instances, doctors serve a community that predominantly speaks a language other than English. If that’s the case, studying said language can work wonders for your communication. Bonus points if you can enlist your patients to help with your improvement.
Leverage Services Like Transcription
Healthcare is evolving, and medical professionals must keep up with the times. This goes beyond technologies like doing health checkups via Zoom, scheduling appointments through email, or promoting important health seminars to patients via messaging apps. You also need to consider effective documentation and communication strategies within the healthcare organization—and transcription is the best solution for this issue.
With transcripts, medical professionals can have an accurate and detailed repository of all patient interactions. These transcripts can then be used for feedback or training purposes.
Even beyond accurate record-keeping, high-quality transcripts can help streamline workflow throughout the group, reduce paperwork tasks, and improve communication and collaboration between different healthcare teams.
However, all these benefits hinge upon one thing: transcription accuracy.
The Impact of Using AI Work Tools for Medical Transcription
Medical transcription is one of the best solutions for modern-day documentation woes. Artificial intelligence can transcribe audio files—the best speech-to-text dictation apps often include this feature. With some apps, it’s often as simple as pressing the microphone icon and watching the words get written on your screen.
So why can’t they be used for effective communication strategies in healthcare?
The issue lies with accuracy. Transcription services that use AI software suffer from transcription errors because automated transcription can only reach 61.92% accuracy – requiring human intervention.
Voice-to-text applications that transform spoken words into documents are popular dictation transcription options. They’re pretty good, yet you’ll quickly realize how frustrating they can be once you’ve dictated a critical letter or report. Here’s a quick example: a doctor says “hypertension” with a slight British accent. Despite speaking the same language (English), AI is likely to transcribe it as “hypotension,” which is the exact opposite.
Many healthcare professionals must understand that even if some software might recognize most of your words due to their training, the app can still surprise you with punctuation in odd places, butchered professional jargon, and unusable formats.
Medical transcription services must offer near-perfect transcripts every time to help medical teams and organizations effectively. Medical and health terminologies can make it hard for automated transcription to produce accurate transcripts. That’s why certified medical transcriptionists are preferred. Otherwise, the risks outweigh the benefits and you’re putting your patient’s health in danger.
Improve Your Healthcare Communication Strategy With A Professional US Service Provider
There are a lot of medical transcription companies out there, and many of them are either foreign or fake. Knowing which ones are ethical can be difficult. However, there are several different qualities you should look for in any agency you hire.
First, you’ll want to look for American-based HIPAA and HITECH-compliant companies. These agencies are working at the highest level of security possible. They will go out of their way to ensure that all privacy, security, and all the regulations are followed- to the T.
Look for agencies with legitimate US addresses and government registrations, and ensure that their business licenses are in good standing with whatever state they are registered within.
Keep in mind that while agencies outside of the country may offer slightly cheaper rates, they’re prone to higher rates of inaccuracies in transcription and much more likely to put you at a significant security risk. Case in point: several years ago, a transcription company in India caused a huge data breach when medical files belonging to 32,000 US patients were indexed by Google (hacked), and that is far from the only case.
Another thing to look for is a clear process that the agency has in place to deliver the work well and on time. Reputable agencies will have processes that include file submission(s), transcription, quality assurance, report delivery, and file storage.
The agency should be able to define clear turn-around times (TAT), which often vary from 2, 4, 8, 12, 24, or 48 hours after submission in medical transcription services. Check to see if the agency offers STAT delivery times, which can assure rush delivery when needed (though often at a rate increase).
Last but not least, you’d want to work with a human transcription company that offers the highest accuracy rates possible. Aim for 99%.
Here’s a quick summary of what to look for:
- American-based companies with business licenses, addresses, and bank accounts
- Government registrations and certifications
- Transparent billing structures and payment options
- Clear turn-around times are available, and processes are in place to guarantee accuracy and quality
- Accepts whatever type of audio files your EMR produces
- HIPAA and HITECH-compliant
- Experienced with specialized medical transcription services
- High guarantees of accuracy
- Appropriate insurance policies, such as general liability and cyber liability
In case you haven’t caught on yet, Ditto offers all of these and more. So, there’s no need to look through an endless catalog of other medical transcription companies when you already have the best right here.
Make Your Communication Strategies More Effective With Ditto
Interested in seeing how our medical transcription services can help? Let’s set up a no-obligation call, so get in touch and learn more about what we can do for you.
Ditto Transcripts is a Denver, Colorado-based HIPAA-compliant medical transcription company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable medical transcription services for hospitals, clinics, facilities, and individual practices of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a quote and ask about our free five-day trial.