Communication Skills for the Health Care Professional (3rd Edition)

Description

Communication Skills for the Health Care Professional, Third Edition is a comprehensive guide to improving patient outcomes through relationship building and the use of information technology to foster communication between patients, families, and health providers.

The author examines the context for communication in an evolving health care system and provides the foundations for understanding human and therapeutic communication. Readers will learn critical competencies to ensure quality, patient-centered care as well as skills to manage communication across relevant constituencies. The book also touches on solutions for transforming health care by changing patient behavior and systems of care.

Designed for undergraduate students across the health professions, this text provides caregivers with basic communication knowledge and skills and is an invaluable resource for those in administrative functions as well.

Key Features

• Covers principles, concepts, skills, and evidence critical to a broad-base, health professional curricula
• Teaches communication skills one at a time allowing for contiguous mastery across a set of therapeutic interventions
• Offers two new chapters that explore advances in health information technology and provide problems on access to and availability of healthcare
• Includes an extensive glossary of terms and list of references including websites and resources available to enhance student learning

Table of Contents

1. Part  I  The Context for Health Care Communications in an Evolving Health Care System
   1. Chapter  1  Evolution of Health Care Delivery and Implications for Health Providers
   2. Chapter  2  Technological Advances Have Changed the Way Health Professionals and Patients Communicate
   3. Chapter  3  Problems in Access to and Availability of Health Care Intimately Linked to Patient-Provider Communications
2. Part  II  Foundations for Understanding Communications in Health Care
   1. Chapter  4  Principles of Human Communication
   2. Chapter  5  The Nature of Therapeutic Communications
   3. Chapter  6  Cultural Similarities and Differences and Communication
3. Part  III  Critical Competencies in Therapeutic Communications
   1. Chapter  7  The Pervasive Role of Empathy, Confirmation, and Compassion
   2. Chapter  8  Communications That Contribute to Trust and Mistrust of Providers
   3. Chapter  9  The Art and Skillful Use of Questions
   4. Chapter  10  Therapeutic Use of Silence and Pauses
   5. Chapter  11  The Impact of Self-Disclosures
   6. Chapter  12  The Proper Placement of Advisement
   7. Chapter  13  Reflections and Interpretations
   8. Chapter  14  The Judicious Use of Confrontations, Orders, and Commands
4. Part  IV  Communications to Ensure Comprehensive and Continuous Patient-Centered Care under Challenging Circumstances
   1. Chapter  15  Communicating with Patients with Low Health Literacy
   2. Chapter  16  Communicating with Patients Who Have Chronic and/or Life Threatening Illness
   3. Chapter  17  Communicating with Patients and Families in Crisis
   4. Chapter  18  Communicating Effectively with Patients Displaying Significant Negative or Resistive Coping Responses
5. Part  V  Beyond Patient-Provider Encounters: Managing Communications Within and Across Relevant Constituencies
   1. Chapter  19  Communications Within and Across Health Care Provider Groups
   2. Chapter  20  Beyond Patient-Provider Encounters: Managing Communications Within and Across Relevant Constituencies
   3. Chapter  21  Family Dynamics and Communications with Patients’ Significant Others
6. Part  VI  Ethics and Communications in Health Care
   1. Chapter  22  Patient’s Rights to Informed Choice and Consent in Health Care Decision Making
   2. Chapter  23  The Privileged Nature of Patient- Provider Communications: Issues of Confidentiality, Anonymity, and Privacy
7. Part  VII  Transforming Health Care through Changing Patient Behaviors and Systems of Care
   1. Chapter  24  Transforming Health Care through Changing Patient Behaviors and Systems of Care
   2. Chapter  25  Altering Systems of Care to Enhance Health Care Communications
8. Part  VIII  Evidence Supports the Importance of Effective Communications
   1. Chapter  26  Bringing Health Provider Communication to the Patient, Not Patient to Provider
   2. Chapter  27  Communications to Promote Behavior Change
   3. Chapter  28  Collaborative Care to Promote Treatment Adherence and Effective Mental Health Care
   4. Chapter  29  Communications for Advance Care Planning

Author Biography

Gwen van Servellen, PhD, RN, FAAN – Professor Emeritus, School of Nursing, University of California, Los Angeles
Gwen van Servellen, RN, PhD, FAAN is a Professor Emeritus from the School of Nursing, University of California, Los Angeles where she served as Section Chair of the Acute Care Section and the Psychiatric Mental Health Section. Additionally, she has consulted and taught abroad and extensively in the United States. Most recently she served as Interim Associate Dean of Research and Extramural Affairs, College of Nursing, Denver, University of Health Sciences Center.

She is a fellow in the prestigious American Academy of Nursing. She is an active consultant in curriculum development for graduate programs in nursing and development of research expertise in faculty building research programs in the areas of adherence to treatment, utilization of health care services, and psychosocial components and quality of life in persons with chronic illness. She is the author of seven textbooks, one of which won the American Nurses’ Association Book Award and one which was translated in Japanese.

She has authored or co-authored over 70 peer reviewed articles in a variety of professional journals. She is a reviewer for numerous journals, including Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, Patient Education and Counseling, Psychology, Health and Medicine, Psychiatric Services, Quality of Life Research, and International Journal of Nursing Studies, Journal of Critical Care Nursing, Clinical Nursing Research, Western Journal of Nursing Research, AIDS Care, AIDS Patient Care and STDs, and AIDS and Behavior. She is on the editorial board for the international journal, Nursing and Health Sciences. She served on UCLA’s Protection of Human Subjects Committee for over seven years and is deeply concerned about low literate individuals’ understanding of the research and consent process.