Reflective Listening in a Hospital Setting
In this blog, I want to focus on how reflective listening can be beneficial in a real-world scenario. In the article “The Healing Power of Listening in the ICU” Authors Craig M. Lilly, MD & Barbara J. Daly, ph. D, RN explain how actively listening in the ICU can benefit families who have loved ones in the intensive care unit of a hospital. The article states “This five-part system, known by the mnemonic VALUE, includes the following elements: valuing and appreciating what the family members communicate, acknowledging their emotions by using reflective summary statements, listening to family members, understanding who the patient is as a person by asking open-ended questions and listening carefully to the responses, and eliciting questions from the family more effectively than by simply asking, any questions”
This quote is emphasizing the fact that if hospital staffs take the time to speak with the patient’s family about how to manage a critical illness and death of a loved one, there will be a more effective outcome. The article goes on to propose that “The time clinicians working in an ICU spend supporting family members in shared decision making should roughly correspond to the mortality rate of the ICU patient population”- The New England Journal of Medicine.
This means that a fulltime clinician working fulltime in an ICU with a mortality rate of about 2% will spend 2 hours a week supporting patients and families. This is a prime example of how reflective listening can be used in any job setting. Hospital staff have one of the most challenging jobs in my opinion, having to deliver bad news is never an easy task; but this article illustrates how actively listening, acknowledging emotions, and understanding who the patient is as a person can benefit the outcome of end-of-life care.
Citation:
Craig M. Lilly, M.D., and Barbara J. Daly, Ph.D., RN (2007, February). The Healing Power of Listening in the ICU.
Retrieved from http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMe068253
