Effective Communication

Effective Communication Paper
Effective communication is an important and essential tool needed in health care organizations. Effective communication influences an organization success in a variety of positive ways. Keeping the organization employees informed about changes being made, knowledge gained, and successes achieved are an essential way of providing effective communication. Communication also provides the opportunity for questions they may have, employees need to feel that they matter to such organization they are employed by and need to feel the cohesiveness of not only their teams but from the whole organization, which promotes effective communication and unity within such teams of the organization. There is a variety of communication methods in order for the health care organization can communicate effectively internally and externally as well.
The organizational model that best describes the organization I am employed by would be the hierarchical structured model. The organization is carefully blueprinted into functional departments, which are managed from the top of the hierarchy chief executive through a variety of structures, regulations, job description, rules and policies. This model seems to work efficiently, but room for improvement is always a possibility. The organization is compromised of several department heads and lower level employees who job duties are performed based on job descriptions. The department managers communicate through all staff meetings on a monthly basis and through the organization intranet in a form of a memo to communication about the organization’s news, changes, and successes.
As employees, we are encouraged to participate in an all employee survey, which is anonymous, but constructed according to departments, professional levels, and job functions. This survey has been one of the most effective techniques for sharing and communicating information and ideas as employees, it is composed with a variety of questions pertaining to the type of work the department handles, any changes needed, how satisfied we are with our leaders and managers, and any suggestions for improvements within our department and job functions. The survey is offered yearly in order to receive feedback from us the employers and to keep track of suggestions that have been set into place. This survey has been a successful communication tool for our organization and departments, many suggestions made have been successfully put in place and is why every year we all await this survey which gives us the opportunity to voice our concerns, opinions, ideas and suggestions. Our organizations intranet also provide us the employees with effective communication about our nation wide sister organization, it provides us with optional training to better assist our patients, it also provides us with the new services and news about what other departments are participating within the organization to better provide care for our patients. As employees we have yearly training to complete according to the level of patient care we conduct, these set of training modules and courses completed through an Internet site that was created specifically for our organization is composed of; solving solutions, patient care, diverse group skills, HIPAA, security, confidentiality, and communication improvement techniques. This program and courses enhance the knowledge and solution skills needed as health care employees, which offers the opportunity to learn patient problem solving at our level according to our department functions.
My organizations ineffective barriers of communication vary from departments, managers, and lead assistants. I have witnessed inconsistency type of communication, where one manager says something then the other one has a different version to the same topic. This inconsistency creates distrust, misinformation, and ineffective mixed messages. One technique utilized within our department is when we have department meetings it is sent through and email for all employees to assist, but not all of us can assist due to that there is not enough floor coverage, and the effort to rotate employees according to who assisted the last meeting is not monitored or taken in consideration. This lack of communication and team size technique has left many employees without being able to gain department information, which affects internal communication as a whole.
The current effective communication techniques that my organization utilizes can be applied to other health care work environments to effectively enhance communication internally. These techniques can be applied through the use of technology and face to face techniques such as; email, organization intranet, team meetings, conference call meetings, organization all staff meetings, and through individual training. Such techniques can be modified depending on the type of health organization and the size of teams available. The organization surveys have been modified to fit all employees to the specifics of such department. The annual training can be done face to face or through an Internet site at the employees pace. This communication and its delivery techniques at times can be better learned face to face versus using technology, by utilizing certain technology techniques can abstract such communication intended to be delivered, it is critically important to know your organization’s teams and proper techniques needed in order to communicate effectively. Emails are not always ideal for effective communication, due to that might be misunderstandings and questions needed to be addressed in order for effective understanding.
The internal and external trend of the health care critically requires employees to connect widely with coworkers, off-site employees, consultants, and other health care professionals. Sharing knowledge within the health care organization is critical to the success of such organizations. Organization models vary and it is imperative that proper communication techniques are developed in order to have an effective communication rapport internally and externally, to better manage, lead, and provide employees with effective communication to enhance knowledge and performance, which intern would impact the health care services provided and delivered to the consumer.