Communication Tools
This structured framework stands for Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation.
What is SBAR?
This 4-step framework (Describe, Express, Suggest, Consequences) helps team members address interpersonal conflict constructively.
What is the DESC Script?
Laminated pocket reference cards, badge cards, or structured checklists that assist clinicians during high-stress or rare events are examples of this type of tool.
What is a cognitive aid?
Asking a patient or family member to explain in their own words what they understood about a care plan is known as this technique.
What is the Teach-Back method?
When excess noise, interruptions, or simultaneous conversations prevent a message from being received accurately, it is classified as this type of barrier.
What is an Environmental Barrier (or Noise/Distraction)?
These three phrases make up the graded escalation tool used when a team member senses a safety issue ("I am Concerned, I am Uncomfortable, This is a Safety Issue").
What is CUS?
This culture exists when team members feel safe to take risks, ask questions, admit mistakes, and voice concerns without fear of negative consequences.
What is Psychological Safety?
This tool helps individuals monitor their own personal readiness for work using the acronym I'M SAFE (Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, Eating/Emotion).
What is the I'M SAFE checklist?
The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions.
What is Health Literacy?
When a clinician’s working memory is overwhelmed by too many simultaneous clinical tasks, it creates this type of cognitive challenge.
What is High Cognitive Load?
This closed-loop communication technique involves the sender initiating a message, the receiver repeating it back, and the sender confirming correctness.
What is a Check-Back?
The practice of asserting a safety concern at least twice to ensure it has been heard by the decision-maker is known as this rule.
What is the Two-Challenge Rule?
The STEP tool for monitoring situational awareness assesses Status of the Patient, Team Members, Environment, and this fourth element.
What is Progress toward Goal?
Instead of asking "Do you have any questions?", clinicians should use this open-ended phrasing to encourage inquiry.
What is "What questions do you have for me?"
Using jargon, acronyms, or discipline-specific shorthand when communicating with cross-disciplinary team members or patients creates this barrier.
What is a Language/Semantic Barrier?
This strategy is used to communicate critical information quickly to the entire team during an emergency or fast-moving clinical situation (e.g., calling out vital signs).
What is a Call-Out?
When a colleague expresses concern using CUS or the Two-Challenge Rule, the receiver’s immediate responsibility is to do this, rather than dismiss it.
What is stop and listen (or acknowledge and validate the concern)?
This process involves error reduction by actively monitoring actions of team members to catch human error before it reaches the patient.
What is Cross-Monitoring (or "watching each other's back")?
The NURSE acronym (Naming, Understanding, Respecting, Supporting, Exploring) is designed to respond effectively to patient and family emotions with this core quality.
What is Empathy?
The psychological phenomenon where individuals in a group conform to a consensus rather than voice dissenting opinions or safety concerns.
What is Groupthink?
This mnemonic is often used during handoffs to ensure a standardized shift or unit transfer (stands for Introduction, Patient, Assessment, Situation, Safety Concerns, Background, Actions, Timing, Ownership, Next).
What is I PASS the BATON?
Unaddressed organizational or professional dynamics that prevent junior staff from speaking up to senior clinicians are referred to as this barrier.
What is Steep Hierarchy (or Authority Gradient)?
An organizational model that balances a non-punitive environment for system failures with individual accountability for reckless behavior is called this.
What is a Just Culture?
This collaborative process ensures patients, families, and clinicians weigh risks, benefits, and personal values together when choosing a care pathway.
What is Shared Decision-Making?
A brief, structured meeting held before a procedure or shift to establish roles, anticipate risks, and align expectations is known as this.
A brief, structured meeting held before a procedure or shift to establish roles, anticipate risks, and align expectations is known as this.