E-communication–a modality to improve the hospital management

Abstract

Developing e-tools in health system is not only a characteristic of our century, but is also, in the same time a modality to improve in real time the health management. Developing friendly tools useful for improving the communication between medical staff is one of our preoccupations, based on the necessity developed in one study made in a Romanian hospital. The study reveals the importance of communication and in subsidiary the necessity to use intranet for communication and improving the management in hospital, polyclinic even if they are public or private.

Full text

E-communication – a modality to improve the hospital management
LILIANA ROGOZEA1, CEZAR PODASCA 1,
RUDOLF DERCZENI1, DANIELA ADRIANA ION2
1Transilvania University of Brasov, ROMANIA
2UMF Carol Davila
r_liliana@yahoo.com, caesarpodaska@yahoo.com, derczeni@unitbv.ro, danielaion7@yahoo.com
Abstract: Developing e-tools in health system is not only a characteristic of our century, but is also, in the same time a
modality to improve in real time the health management. Developing friendly tools useful for improving the
communication between medical staff is one of our preoccupations, based on the necessity developed in one study
made in a Romanian hospital. The study reveals the importance of communication and in subsidiary the necessity to
use intranet for communication and improving the management in hospital, polyclinic even if they are public or private.
Key Words: communication, medical staff, intranet, health management
1. Introduction
We know that internet change the human behaviour and
reduce the distance between people. A lot of benefit of
using internet in management was explore and revealed,
including in our country. We believe that internet usage
will have other benefits, which will be emphasized as the
computer system in the healthcare sector will be
increasingly well tuned. [5, 8]
Often, the failure of a piecework or measure aimed a
change for a better, are the result of an ineffective
communication. Managerial role of planning, organizing,
leading, personal, control and decision are in relation
with the effective communication. Without it, health
organizations are merely conglomerates of people and
departments.
Communication inside hospitals and doctor – patient
communication is done directly, unmediated and un-
formalized. Between these subjects of transfer is a
permanently exchange of information, which lead to
specific objectives of the meeting. To obtain a high
efficiency, communication must occur in ascendant and
descendent way. [3, 7, 9]
2. Material and methods
Assessment of expectation regarding communication
was done on basis of questionnaire at a City Hospital,
being realized a descriptive compared study on a group of
96 employees representing two categories of medical
staff (50 nurses and 46 auxiliary staff). Were distributed
and completed questionnaires with relevant questions
about communication from this hospital: communication
between medical team and medical staff – patient
communication. The study followed to evaluate the
communication capacity, communication components,
types of communications; communication networks
communication barriers, ways of increase the
communication efficiency, strategy and principles of
effective communication.
The steeps of study were:
 assessment questionnaires administration and
collection;
 centralized and analysed the obtained data;
 presenting the obtained results – graphical
representation;
 interpretation of results.
The questioned persons are represented by nurses
(52%) and auxiliary staff (48%), mostly with age
between 20 and 50 years (figure 1).
11 9
16
20
15 17
44
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
20-30 ani 31-40 ani 41-50 ani peste 50 ani
Age responds
auxiliary staff nurse
Figure 1
Assessment shows that all nurses and 98% of auxiliary
staff know their rights and duties that arising from their
occupied positions, in the conditions that their function
involves a decision tasks or administrative task.
From the total respondents, 42 notes with “10” the
communication from this institution (figure 2), more than
a half believing that this communication is realized in
optimal conditions.
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000 0 0 0 0 0 0103
70
814 914
24 18
0
5
10
15
20
25
12345678910
auxiliary staff nurse
Figure 2
The managerial activity is evaluated with grades of “9”
and “10” by most of the staff; there were no significant
differences between those two categories (figure 3).
0000000 0 00
8.7 6
0
16 10.8
10
45.7
40
34.8
28
0
10
20
30
40
50
12345678910
Assessment of managerial activity %
auxiliary staff nurse
Figure 3
Communication deficiencies are indeed a source of
stress for staff in health units, in a higher proportion of
nurses than for auxiliary staff (Figure 4).
82.00 67.39
18.00 32.61
0
20
40
60
80
100
yes no
Communication deficiencies - a source of stress
%
nurse - auxiliary staff
Figure 4
Stress induced by poor communication is felt in relation
with doctors and with colleagues from the department, so
within the team and in the medical team. Stress induced
by poor communication between the same category is
significantly higher for nurses (figure 5).
17.1 16.1
22.0
0
34.1 35.5
14.6
48.4
12.2
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
senior st aff doctor s subordi nate
Sources of stress - communication deficiencies %
nurse auxiliary staff
Figure 5
Communication with doctors is very good from most of
the staff point of view (figure 6).
42
32
22
4
47,8
26,1
19,5
6,5
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
nurse auxiliary staff
Evaluation of communication with doctors
very good good satisfactory unsatisfactory
Figure 6
In relation with superior is communicating pretty well,
most of the questioned say that they communicate well
and very well. Also, in relation with subordinates, few
questioned people said that were dissatisfied (figure 7).
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ISSN: 1792-6114
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ISBN: 978-960-474-243-1

19 18 18
23
97
02
0
5
10
15
20
25
very good good satisfactory unsatisfactory
Communication with superior staff
auxiliary staff nurse
Figure 7
The proportion of those satisfied or partially satisfied
with communication with the administrative staff is
higher than for other categories (figure 8).
8.8
71.7
19.5
0
20
52
22
6
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
auxiliary staff nurse
Communication with administrative staff
very good good satisfactory unsatisfactory
Figure 8
In communication with superiors, nurses face with a
lack of explanations in case communicating a decision,
the auxiliary staff with excessive demands, and all the
staff is stressed by the emotional explosion and
unfounded judgment of superiors (figure 9).
17 31
10
18
14 26
18
13
14
4
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
emotional explosions,
unfounded judgments
absence of any rewards
excessive demands
lack of explanati ons
passivity, disregard the
needs of others
nurse auxiliary staff
Figure 9
Both nurse and auxiliary staff consider that the
formations communicated by the superiors are correctly
perceived (figure 10).
48
38
14
0
63,04
23,91
13,04
0
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
nurse auxiliary staff
Do you think the information you send to
superiors are valued correctly?
always frequently rare never
Figure 10
Communication within the team and medical team is
pretty good (figure 11)
Specify the satisfaction/ unsatisfaction degree
communication within the members of the team
8
30
42
20
2
27
49
0
40
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
very
satisfied fairly
satisfied midding quite
dissatisfied completely
dissatisfied
nurse auxiliary srtaff
Figure 11
3. e-communication in hospital
The internet could be used not only for developing
medical or nursing activities, but in the same time for
developing intelligent home care, e-prescription or e-
education for people involved in medical fields. [9, 10]
E-Europe is a priority in variety fields, including in
health (figure 12).
Figure 11
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New strategies for improving e-Health are developed by
WHO, EU parliament or other organization. Public health
uses more and more the informatics’ facilities for
improving the results in health system. [4]
In that way for the questionnaire tested initially in a
classic way, it as designed a modality to collected
information using intranet.
6. Conclusion
More and more state hospitals use the internet not only
for sharing information about the hospital, but also for
evaluate the patients’ satisfaction and to advertise their
expertise. We think that not only the patients satisfaction
are important but also the medical staff satisfaction, and
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ISBN: 978-960-474-243-1

intranet could help in evaluate and improve in real time
hospital management. [1, 6]
Developing a friendly ICT tools for improving
communication is only a part of the future virtual
hospitals communication
Figure 12
Also, respect regarding the ethical rules become very
important when is designed a questionnaire and was used
internet facilities. Virtual hospital is a new concept, but it
becomes more and more important. [2, 8]
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