What’s communication like between you and your patients and their loved ones while wearing masks? Are you finding it somewhat difficult to hear someone in a facility or hospital or office setting while wearing a mask? Are you able to read emotions accurately? What is it like trying to convey empathy when sharing difficult news?
Wearing face masks/coverings may be a risk reduction strategy that will remain necessary for months longer.
- What strategies are you or other members of your team using, or testing, to overcome these challenges?
- Do you have any ideas or suggestions that you believe might have positive impact?
Thanks for sharing in the comments below.
Contributed by Ellie Ward, Community Education & Outreach, Vidant Health
4 Comments
One idea I have seen online is patients, loved ones, and staff wearing a small button on the side of the mask saying “Please be patient, I am hard of hearing”. So simple, yet empowering for the individual to ask for patience. Also engages others to be “part of the solution”.
Thank you, Sue. Your comment stimulated my comments below in reponse to Katy on window masks.
We are making and supplying “Window Masks” to our team members. We include the masks as part of our communication tool kits. They’ve been very effective in improving communication. We started with a narrow focus… staff working with Deaf or hard of hearing patients/family members who needed to read lips. They are so popular, we’ve expanded to use with Chaplains, Pediatricians, and Speech Therapists across the system.
Duke’s Fischer et al just published “Low-cost measurement of facemask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech,” https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/08/07/sciadv.abd3083. I wonder how protective window masks are. Is there any data on them? In this article, the authors point to the ease of performing testing on masks. Would NC DHHS Division of Services for the Deaf & the Hard of Hearing be an appropriate resource for testing window masks? What a service to the deaf and hard of hearing such would be. Thank you, Katy and Sue, for bringing the issue to my attention in this blog.