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Medication communication through documentation in medical wards: knowledge and power relations
Wei Liu1, Elizabeth Manias, Marie Gerdtz
1The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Vic., Australia; The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic., Australia.
Nursing Inquiry
|July 5, 2013
Summary
This study reveals how nurses and pharmacists use documentation and communication to ensure patient safety in medication management. Interdisciplinary meetings are recommended to improve information exchange between healthcare professionals.
Area of Science:
- Health Services Research
- Medical Sociology
- Communication Studies
Background:
- Healthcare professionals rely on diverse documentation for medication information exchange.
- Understanding power dynamics in this communication is crucial for patient safety.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore knowledge and power relations in medication information exchange among nurses, doctors, and pharmacists.
- To analyze how documentation influences interprofessional communication regarding medications.
Main Methods:
- Ethnographic fieldwork in two Australian hospital medical wards.
- Data collection via participant observation, interviews, video recording, document retrieval, and focus groups.
- Critical discourse analysis framework applied to the collected data.
Main Results:
- The written medication chart primarily conveys doctors' decisions to nurses.
- Nurses act as auditors of medication charts, scrutinizing prescriptions for patient safety.
- Pharmacists employ scientific judgment to determine the need for verbal communication with other professionals.
Conclusions:
- Targeted interdisciplinary meetings are essential for discussing documented medication information and verbal communication.
- Health professionals should proactively communicate medication regimen changes and treatment goals across disciplines.
- Enhancing interprofessional communication is key to improving medication safety and patient outcomes.
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