3 Steps to Better Nurse-Patient Communication

Nurses are busier than ever with both the routine tasks and the increasing roles of facilitating medical teams and fostering better communications. Coordinating tasks and relationships is a challenge, so to that point, what are three best practices for making your life easier and your service more satisfying?

I (Margery Pabst) like to find easy ways to remember tools that work. When I think of communications, remembering the tools as the “3 C’s” is a great way to be mindful of what works. The “3 C’s” are:

• Confirm feelings and thoughts.
   
• Clarify information.
   
• Collaborate to evaluate healing.

What is so profound about the “3 C’s” is that, when one “C” is missing, effectiveness diminishes. For example, if I forget to confirm a patient’s current state (feelings and thoughts), and jump to the clarifying of information, I may come across as unfeeling or disinterested to that person. If I skip clarify, the person may find me a great, collaborative person but may have the wrong information. And if I skip collaborate, then I won’t have the ongoing picture of how the patient is doing and how to best improve our medical practice and treatment.

All of us intuitively know when communication has gone well or when it hasn’t. The “3 C’s” are an assessment for what was left out.

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