Health communication
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Health communication · Jan 2006
Transforming emergency medicine through narrative: qualitative action research at a community hospital.
Emergency departments struggle daily to save lives in an environment characterized by staff shortages, limited resources, and an expanding patient population. This qualitative action research study focused on the nature of communication in an urban emergency room (ER) and the organizing practices employed by staff to cope with these environmental changes, highlighting disconnects between current practices and traditional models of emergent care. A narrative description of the ER culture served as an impetus for practical improvements at this site, providing staff with both a unique perspective and a useful tool for improving their emergency care practices.
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Health communication · Jan 2006
Understanding medical interpreters: reconceptualizing bilingual health communication.
This article provides a new approach in conceptualizing bilingual health communication, emphasizing the differences between types of medical interpreters as well as the interrelationships among all participants in bilingual health communication. Confronted by the conflicting results of interpreting services in medical settings, the author used past research to explain why medical interpreters should be categorized into different categories (i.e., chance interpreters, untrained interpreters, bilingual health care providers, on-site interpreters, and telephone interpreters) so that their characteristics and interpreting styles can be better observed and understood. In addition, by recognizing that interpreter-mediated communications in health settings are dynamic situations and that all participants can influence the outcomes of the communication, researchers can start to investigate the interrelationships among all the participants and, thus, develop different strategies that will improve the quality of bilingual health communication.