Enhanced Communication Skills

Abstract

Good communication is considered fundamental to high-quality palliative care. Communication includes serious illness conversations with patients and family caregivers, collaborative communication across teams and disciplines, and communication with community providers. This chapter explores definitions, evidence-based research, training, and best clinical practices in three areas of enhanced communication. Narrative medicine promotes empathy, patient-centered listening, and life review through reflective journaling, writing, and self-reflection. Goals-of-care discussions, which may include advance care planning, ensure that providers align care with what matters most to the patient. The family meeting is used to facilitate communication, discuss the illness experience, present treatment choices, and facilitate end-of-life decision-making. Quality healthcare mandates training for healthcare clinicians in communication using a systematic approach.