Components of a Strategic Communication Plan

Empire State College

Components of A Strategic Communication Plan

Joe Gutierrez

(2015SU1-HCM-651633-01) Strategic Communications in Health Care

Professor Barry Eisenberg, Ph.D.

7/09/2015

Dear Ms. Administrator:

First, thank you for placing your confidence in the Health Care Communication Consulting Group of Poughkeepsie (CCCGP).

We appreciate the opportunity to address and explore the root causes of both the immediate incident reported to you that we have discussed, and further analyze and explore the less obvious involvement of the more structural, complex and important communication variables that could correlate, explain and reverse the 20% decline in census, and the decrease in employee retention the hospital is experiencing.

 In this effort we hope to present a plant to achieve the goals to improve the hospital’s overall operational efficiency and quality, as well as create an environment to support a sustainable alignment of both patient and care provider experience to the benefit of all stakeholders.

In the following pages I would like to present to you the approach and framework within which we will identify, analyze, and suggest sustainable areas of opportunity to improve the delivery of quality of health messages and communication to improve delivery of services to patients in the short term, and create a strategy to support and convert the short term communications gains into a long term communication for success.

Observations of the incident post initial interview

• We noted that while there is a procedure in  place and every complaint is followed up with a letter,  there did not appear to be any  indication that there was a follow up with the care giver involved to provide corrective counseling and guidelines.  
• Also,  there was no mention of  a process measuring degree of satisfaction from the patients point of view so there are no clear communication goals  
• On the High census decline and staff turnover indicators  – a reevaluation and assessment of the executives perception of the impact of the recent merger may be  needed despite claims that  recent merger of the hospital went quite smoothly from a contractual perspective to understand that this is pivotal event.

• A reevaluation and assessment of the executive’s perception of the impact of the hospital’s merger into a health care system that includes seven hospitals and four long term care facilities as an important factor in the staff turnover, and a reason why  employees are leaving in greater numbers recently, though as to census at the neighboring hospitals, they have remained more stable during this period.  

We want to appropriately value as an indicator the complaints what patients appreciated about the hospital prior to the decline in patient volumes and understand the role in good health communications on the following:

• People elected to seek care at the hospital because it was friendly and comfortable.
• People in the community were comfortable in the hospital prior, and they felt that when they spoke to a member of the staff they were speaking to a neighbor that the merger has diminished public confidence that the hospital was an important part of the community.  

Initial Conclusion

Our initial assessment indicates that that the problem might be more complex and involve important communication variables on many dimensions.  That as an organization, it needs to align its communication strategy and orientation with the goal of improving the patient experience to better understand individual patients’ needs and to provide the hospital and care givers proper guidance ultimately leading to a restoration of a “friendly and comfortable place” by improving care giver and patient encounters through improved communication that restores their prior reputation.

Given that effective communication is now accepted as an essential component

of quality care and patient safety, we would want to achieve this by care givers not only focusing the obvious immediate symptoms of the patients clinical need, but also prevent errors and inaccuracies in the communication by care giver recognizing patients personal characteristic and non-clinical  needs that contribute greatly to how the patient will process communications and receive the suggested care givers treatment.  The caregiver should assess and factor language, culture, and health literacy that can either improve or negatively impact safety and quality of care to the patient

Framework; Basis and approach:

A great deal of the framework and basic approach for the plan will focus on good health communication, and in particular interactions between the care providers and patients.

 This because it is well established and the body of research shows that this reduces drastically the rate of readmissions and unnecessary hospital visits, and reduces complaints and legal actions to hospital, care givers, and physician from the avoidance perspective.  Wright, Sparks, and  O'Hair present research that indicates that “communication interventions to improve quality of care should target both providers and patient communicative behaviors (see e.g. Epstein et al., 2007; Sparks, 2007, 2008; Sparks & Villagran, 2010). Research reveals physicians who are more patient-centered are perceived as better communicators, resulting in more satisfied and compliant patients “ (Street, Gordon, & Haidet, 2007). (1)

Additionally and more importantly from the desired result perspective; research shows that after a well understood communication experience with a physician, patients will tend to follow physicians instructions for drug therapy and follow up care that will in turn increase patient satisfaction with the care received, and simultaneously increase the hospitals reputation for exceptional care as the basis for sustainable growth of the institution. While not diminishing the importance of the immediate incident or the need and responsibility for the hospital to respond appropriately and take corrective action, rather than reactively cobbling together disparate combinations of incentives and disincentives to address the immediate incident, we would like to approach the incident in from a broader

Perspective of the underlying issue by the establishment of standards and guidelines for the good interaction and communications between care givers and patients.  

We feel that this approach will yield a greater return in that we will attempt to provide clear guidance to the care giver and patient alike in the encounter, but also identify environmental and systemic barriers or obstacles to future successful communications as a stated goal of higher levels of patient satisfaction.

Many of the ideas will be adapted from research done by Barry Eisenberg, Ph.D. , and Alan Belasen, Ph.D., and will be referenced throughout.