The residents of your nursing home deserve the best care available to them from staff and administration who care about their health. If a long-term care facility lacks communication skills among its staff and administration, it can lead to chaos and frustration among everyone involved—other staff members, residents, and family members. Provide your employees with the best tools and knowledge for effective ways to enhance staff communication in a nursing home and your residents will enjoy the rest of their sunset years at the facility.
Step Up Nurse Training
Your nurses are a crucial part of how well the long-term care facility runs day after day. A bad day for the faculty or poor training reflects negatively on your nursing home. To keep residents happy and healthy, it’s essential to prioritize staff communication during training.
Not only do your staff members need to practice once during training, but they also need refreshers over the course of the years that they work for your care facility. Try the following training exercises to prepare your nurses with the communication skills they need to succeed:
Clearly Discuss a Resident’s Needs During Care Transfer
During the inevitable situation in which a resident’s care becomes a different nurse’s responsibility, it’s essential that the two nurses are able to discuss everything that the resident requires. Everything from resident quirks to medication must be covered in conversation.
When possible or appropriate, get the resident involved with this process as well. Provide the resident with the right gateways to talk about their needs with both their previous caretaker and new caretaker.
Emphasize Teamwork
Nursing homes require every employee to work together as a team; any competition can prove dangerous for the facility. Emphasize nurses helping nurses. If any staff member has questions or concerns about a resident, ensure that they have means to communicate with other caretakers rather than attempting to solve the problem on their own. Team-building games and exercises can help nurses feel comfortable around their peers and open the floor to communication.
Ensure the Facility Provides Ample Communication Tools
Communication often falls apart at longer distances. Prevent lapses in staff communication by providing your staff with work cellphones or by installing a two-way radio system. As one of the best ways to enhance staff communication in a nursing home, a system of two-way radios offers long-lasting communication without the use of cellphones while at work.
If using work cellphones, it’s important to make sure that cell signals reach all areas of the facility. Not only will improving the cell range in the long-term care facility enhance staff communication, but it will also ensure all residents have the cell range they need to communicate with staff and family. Better communication for staff and residents results in happier clients and even more elated families.