Communication - from the other side

Great topic in general. I would like to see overall communication increase and improve in the ED because it's best for patients and for all of us. It has tanked considerably as careflows have changed and we've run with the idea that everyone can get everything they need by following a protocol, looking at icons on an e-tracker and looking in the EMR. One of the great things about the ED has historically been our potential/ability to be on the same page because we're all right there together. My two bits of information flow right to you, and yours to me. These days we have people putting messages into the tracker system while the person who needs the message is standing 5 ft away. Everything from understanding where we're going with a patient's care to giving excellent discharge instructions has taken a nosedive since we have decided to rely on electronic communication rather than speaking a few sentences to those standing right next to us or just down the hall.

With regard to the specific topic they focused on, it's wise to be mindful of the potential for the possibility of appearing (or being) patronizing, and/or simply not genuine, both of which are problematic and will result in effects opposite of those intended. I admit I got the willies a little bit listening to the intellectualized banter about this simple issue. I only listened once so no direct quoting here, but I'll use their example of a nurse feeling "empowered" to [recognize] and announce that an IV site has gone bad during a code by the fact that the team lead has taken the action of assigning roles at the beginning of the event. Has this ever happened? No. No decent ED nurse ever stared at a bad IV and said nothing during a code in the ED because the provider hadn't previously empowered them to do so.

We can appear both patronizing and ingenue by the words we use.

While I 100% support a situation where the team lead (physician) is the calm director of a code, it is appropriate for them (you) to verify that a plan is in place - not to assign roles, and not to "empower" good ED nurses to do what ED nurses are trained to do.

Yet another dilemma solved by simply treating others as well as we each would like to be treated...

:)