Crisis Communication in Healthcare Setting
What is a Psychotic Crisis?
In this crisis, a person may experience hallucinations, delusions, or disorganized behavior leading to a loss of contact with reality.
Qualities of Disaster Ready Nurse
Emergency preparedness
Triage
CPR proficiency
Critical Thinking
Stress Management
Organization
Floods raise the risk of waterborne diseases and often damage sanitation infrastructure, making public health messaging critical.
What is flooding?
CDC- Center for Disease Control and Prevention
provides training, safety guidelines, and track disease outbreak
Earthquakes destroy hospital infrastrucures, disrupts communication systems and causes power outages that make impede electronic health records and digital communication. They disrupt patient transport & patient transfer. What is the nurse specific role & response?
-Perform rapid needs assessment and triage under limited info
- Use alternative communication (radios, in-person briefings)
- Coordinate with incident command systems for patient transfers
- Provide psychological first aid for trauma and stress (both patients & staff)
What is severe withdrawal crisis?
This crisis occurs when someone experiences acute withdrawal from substances requiring medical stabilization.
Nurses must use concise and standardized language during emergencies, a practice known by this communication acronym.
What is SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation)?
This event causes mass evacuations and prolonged power outages, forcing healthcare teams to staff shelters and manage displaced patients.
What is a hurricane (or tropical storm)?
Red Cross
provides medical aid, training and even shelter
Hurricane natural storm impact on healthcare communication causes
- Widespread power loss and telecommunications outages
- Mass evacuations complicate continuity of care and patient tracking
- Shelters become central points for patient communication and health coordination
What is the nurse specific response?
- Staff shelters and triage centers
- Communicate with interdisciplinary teams, leadership, and community
- Provide health education in shelters (e.g., infection control)
- Support continuity of care for chronic disease patients in displacement
- Document changes and critical events succinctly using “disaster documentation” models
During this event, effective heart function stops — nurses must immediately call a Code Blue, initiate CPR, and communicate clearly using closed-loop communication.
What is cardiac arrest?
Reviewing emergency plans, participating in hazard vulnerability assessments, and attending annual training are part of this ongoing nurse obligation.
What is maintaining disaster preparedness competency?
During this type of disaster, nurses must adapt to rapidly changing guidelines, potential data security risks, and high emotional stress.
What is a biological disaster / pandemic?
FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency. what is their role?
FEMA controls the communication framework
During federally declared emergencies, FEMA activates systems like:
National Response Framework (NRF)
Incident Command System (ICS)
Emergency Support Functions (ESF-8: Public Health and Medical Services)
Healthcare communication in a crisis is shaped by FEMA because FEMA establishes the national command structure, coordinates information across agencies, and provides the tools and guidance healthcare systems must follow. They provide a centralized hub, tools, technology and resources. They centralize and coordinate information flow for Public health (CDC, state departments), Law enforcement, Emergency medical services, Local government, Utility companies.
Technological-Environmental (e.g., tsunami, volcanic eruption) can result in:
-Sudden evacuation disrupts usual care and messaging
- Communication networks may be destroyed or overloaded
- Hazardous conditions (ash, debris) limit in-person access
what are the healthcare communication impacts on nursing roles?
- Hazardous conditions (ash, debris) limit in-person access- Rapid risk assessment and evacuation planning
- Use of nontraditional communication (satellite, radio)
- Collaborate with disaster management for safe sheltering
- Provide wound care, respiratory support (if ash), and psychological support
- Participate in long-term recovery planning for community health
In this condition, the patient cannot oxygenate effectively and may require immediate intubation; nurses must alert the team, prepare airway equipment, and provide concise patient status updates.
What is acute respiratory failure?
this is an acute but normal human response to severely abnormal circumstances. A crisis state is not a mental illness, although individuals with mental illness can experience a crisis state associated with their disorder. Crisis is a complex concept, which can defy easy cause/effect explanations. Because a crisis state represents a personal response, two people experiencing the same crisis event will respond differently to it.
What is crisis state?
RRT's, Rapid Response Teams, is the code called in hospital communications for what traumas?
Respiratory distress, acute stroke, acute myocardial infarction, continuous seizure, or septic shock
What are the types of crisis?
developmental, situational or behaviorial