Effective client communication in emergency and critical care

Both human and veterinary emergency medicine teams face several unique challenges that require situational and contextual awareness (Eisenberg et al, 2005). The nature of emergency work leads to a loss of control over case volume and admissions, necessitating the management of multiple cases with varying complaints and diseases simultaneously, often accompanied by numerous interruptions. Emergency medicine involves a high level of uncertainty, whether stemming from incomplete information about a patient in an out-of-hours clinic or the need to make clinical decisions before all diagnostic results are available for interpretation because of the inevitable time constraints associated with emergency work. George Bernard Shaw said, ‘The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.’ Despite the vital role of communication, research indicates that miscommunication accounts for a considerable proportion of professional negligence cases in veterinary medicine, leading to negative client experiences and poor clinical outcomes (Russell et al, 2022). Several barriers to effective communication exist in an emergency setting, including environmental factors such as noise and interruptions; client characteristics such as cultural background, spoken language, emotional state and previous experiences; and healthcare provider characteristics such as knowledge gaps, attitudes and emotional intelligence (Moreira and French, 2019).