​An intervention that standardized the structure of provider-family discussions decreased harmful medical errors and improved family experience and communication, according to December 5, 2018, study in the BMJ. Families, nurses, and physicians worked together to produce the intervention, which included structured, highly reliable communication that emphasized health literacy, family engagement, and two-way conversations during rounds. It also featured structured, written real-time summaries of rounds and a formal training program for healthcare providers. Implementation occurred at seven pediatric inpatient units between December 17, 2014, and January 3, 2017. Although the overall rate of medical errors did not change, harmful medical errors decreased by 38% after implementation. This decrease came without either a significant increase in the duration of rounds or a decrease in the amount of teaching on rounds. Further research will be needed to test the sustainability of such an intervention and to determine whether it is generalizable across settings, the authors say. "Structuring communication between healthcare providers and patients and families to better [meet] the needs of both could be an important, as yet underappreciated, means to improve the safety of patient care," the authors said.

HRC Recommends: Communication breakdowns, possibly leading to patient harm, can occur if healthcare providers fail to engage patients and to adopt measures to ensure patients understand the information they receive. Many experts recommend making all written and oral information easy to understand when communicating with patients and their family members and checking for understanding. One method of checking for understanding is the teach-back method, in which the staff member asks the patient to explain, in his or her own words, what he or she has been told or to demonstrate a skill.