Hiding in plain sight: communication theory in implementation science (23 April 2015)

Summary

Poor communication among healthcare professionals contributes to widespread barriers to patient safety. The word “communication” means to share or make common. In research literature, two communication paradigms dominate:

1. communication as a transactional process responsible for information exchange
2. communication as a transformational process responsible for causing change.

Implementation science has focused on information exchange attributes while largely ignoring transformational attributes of communication. This article in the journal Implementation Science debates the merits of encompassing both approaches.