ECRI has released two resources designed to help healthcare facilities improve communication practices and reduce the likelihood of error.

Dubbed “Communication,” the new risk management report provides recommendations for healthcare facilities to use in assessing the quality of their communication practices. The report discusses practical strategies to improve communications in some of the most common and high-risk trouble spots — medication orders, reporting critical test results, and patient ‘handoffs,’ in which a patient’s care is transitioned from one practitioner to the next.

A companion training program provides a roadmap to educate physicians and staff about the importance of effective communication and also outlines approaches for disclosing unanticipated outcomes and errors to patients and their families, ECRI said.