But despite the pervasive rhetoric about the importance of good communication as a foundational principle of quality healthcare, anecdotal evidence abounds about communication breakdowns throughout the healthcare enterprise, and about the lack of opportunities for authentic dialogue among affected parties.
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) devotes several pages of its revised standard on MSDS preparation to communication principles, providing good general guidelines on techniques to enhance comprehensibility of these important documents (ANSI 2004).
Peter Galsworthy, for the Health and Safety Executive, said: "The Trust's systems were simply not robust enough to ensure that staff consistently followed principles of good communication and record keeping.
It can be assumed that this team had developed the basic principles of good communication with the requesting physicians, which has been shown to increase adherence with recommendations [ 16, 17].
But the idea of good communication and investing in community-based services early are principles many would agree could help wherever changes is taking place.
INA-RESPOND members work on the principles of teamwork based on trust, respect, transparency, good communication, collaboration, and shared responsibility.
The problem of translating agreement on guiding principles for good cancer care (in this case, good communication) into practical suggestions for improvement was seen in several areas without communication as well.
'Good' communication is commonly expounded through a 'patient centred' model in which principles of patient involvement and collaboration are advocated [ 47].
