Communication in Healthcare: What It Is, Why It Matters and How Teams Do It Well

Communication in healthcare is the exchange of information between patients, clinicians and staff to deliver care, coordinate it and run the practice. Most guides cover only bedside manner. This page also covers two other layers: how clinicians communicate with each other, and the everyday operational messages between the front desk, billing, managers and other locations, where many follow-ups get lost. It is part of our healthcare communication and HIPAA guides, and it includes example messages you can adapt without adding patient data.

What communication in healthcare means

In a healthcare setting, communication covers every exchange that affects care or the running of the practice. A clinician explains a treatment plan. A nurse calls a specialist's office. The front desk tells billing that a patient's insurance has changed. A manager announces new holiday hours to three locations.

"Medical communications" has two meanings, and search results mix them:

• The medical communications industry. Agencies and medical writers produce scientific and promotional content, such as journal manuscripts, conference materials, medical education and product information for pharmaceutical and device companies. "Medical and scientific communication" usually refers to this field.
• Communication in care delivery. This is how patients, clinicians and staff share information while providing care and operating a practice. The rest of this page is about this meaning.

Medical communication (definition): The exchange of health-related information, spoken, written, nonverbal or electronic, between patients, clinicians and healthcare staff, with the goal of delivering safe care and coordinating the work around it.

This page covers three layers:

Layer	Who is involved	Typical examples
Provider–patient	Clinicians, front desk and patients or families	Explaining a diagnosis, giving discharge instructions, booking calls, portal messages
Interprofessional	Physicians, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, other clinicians	Consults, referrals, care plan discussions, clinical handoffs
Operational and administrative	Front desk, billing, HR, IT, clinic managers, other locations	Schedule changes, supply orders, IT issues, policy updates, internal requests

Why communication is important in healthcare

Patient safety. Communication failures come up again and again when serious adverse events are analyzed. Typical failures include a test result that reaches the wrong person, an instruction misheard on the phone, or a handoff that leaves out one key detail.

Patient experience, adherence and trust. Patients who understand their care and feel heard are generally more likely to follow treatment plans and come back.

Health equity. Patients do not all start with the same reading level, language or familiarity with the health system. The National CLAS Standards set out how organizations can provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services. In practice, this means:

• plain-language instructions
• qualified interpreters instead of family members
• materials in the languages your patients speak
• checking that the patient understood

When every patient gets information they can actually use, quality of care is more even across the patient population.

Staff workload and burnout. When requests arrive by sticky note, hallway conversation, personal text and email all at once, staff spend their day chasing answers. Ownership is unclear, follow-ups depend on someone's memory, and the same question gets asked three times.

Practice operations. Many operational problems start as communication problems:

• No-shows. A reschedule is agreed by phone but never entered, so the reminder goes out for the old time.
• Billing delays. Updated insurance details collected at check-in never reach billing, so a claim is denied and has to be reworked.
• Supply gaps. Each location assumes another one placed the order.

For the most frequent causes and how to spot them, see common communication barriers in healthcare.

Types of communication in healthcare

Type	Examples	Where it goes wrong
Verbal	Conversations, phone calls, morning huddles, shift handoffs	Nothing written down, details misheard, no confirmation
Nonverbal	Eye contact, posture, facial expression, tone, silence	Typing while a patient talks, rushed tone at the desk
Written	Clinical notes, referral letters, patient instructions, internal memos	Jargon, missing context, no clear next step
Electronic	EHR messages, patient portals, secure email, staff chat, telehealth	Wrong channel, notification overload, PHI in unapproved apps

Nonverbal communication shapes trust before anyone says a word. A clinician who faces the patient, keeps a calm tone and leaves room for questions comes across very differently from one who looks at a screen the whole time. You will often see a single percentage quoted for how much communication is "nonverbal." That figure comes from narrow experiments about how people read feelings, and it does not apply to communication in general. Words matter, and so does how they are delivered.

Communication also differs by direction:

• Provider–patient: care information, instructions, scheduling.
• Interprofessional: clinician to clinician about patient care.
• Staff-to-staff operational: the requests and updates that keep the day running.
• Organization-wide: announcements from leadership, HR or IT to everyone.

Example: communication in the dental office. On a single morning in a dental practice:

1. The front desk confirms a patient's updated insurance and passes it to billing.
2. The hygienist flags to the dentist that a patient wants to discuss a crown estimate.
3. The dentist asks the front desk to book a longer follow-up appointment.
4. The office manager tells everyone that the sterilization unit is being serviced at noon.

That one morning includes all four directions. If any message goes to the wrong place or has no owner, the day starts to slip.

Communication skills for healthcare professionals

Active listening and teach-back. Let the person finish, ask clarifying questions, then confirm understanding. With patients, the teach-back method asks them to explain the instructions in their own words, for example: "So I know I explained it clearly, can you tell me how you'll take this?" The same habit works between colleagues: "To confirm, you'll send the corrected claim by Friday?"

Plain language. Say "blood pressure medicine," not "antihypertensive," to patients. Clinical shorthand also confuses non-clinical colleagues. A front desk coordinator cannot act on an abbreviation they don't know.

Clarity and brevity in writing. Every internal request should answer three questions: who owns it, what exactly is needed, and by when. Put the ask in the first line. Put the background after it.

Empathy, respect and cultural awareness. Acknowledge frustration about wait times or bills. Use the patient's preferred name and language. Never assume what a patient understands based on their background.

Professional conduct in digital channels. Knowing which channel to use is a skill in itself:

Use this channel	For
EHR	Anything that belongs in the patient record, clinical documentation and clinical orders
Phone or in person	Urgent or sensitive matters, anything that needs back-and-forth discussion right now
Approved staff chat	Operational requests, schedule and supply questions, announcements, IT issues, internal follow-ups
Patient portal or approved patient messaging	Communication with patients

Write internal messages as if they might be read out in a meeting. Keep them factual and courteous. Don't vent about patients or colleagues in writing.

Communication between healthcare team members

Multidisciplinary teams depend on shared, timely information because no single person holds the whole picture. The physician knows the plan. The nurse knows how the patient is responding. The pharmacist knows about interactions. The front desk knows the patient can only come in on Tuesdays. Care and operations both break down when these pieces don't connect. For a deeper look, read our guide to communication between healthcare professionals.

Structured formats reduce ambiguity. SBAR is one widely taught example. It stands for Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation, and it gives the speaker a fixed order so the listener gets context and a clear ask. Clinical handoffs should follow your organization's approved clinical protocols and systems.

Closed-loop communication has three steps:

1. Request: "Can you call the lab about the missing courier pickup before 3?"
2. Acknowledgement: "Got it, I'll call them."
3. Confirmation: "Called. Pickup rescheduled for 4:30."

The loop is only closed when the person who asked knows the task is done.

Operational handoffs between shifts and locations need the same discipline. Examples include an open supply order, a broken printer, or a payer call that still needs a callback. Each open item should have:

• a named owner
• a deadline
• one place where its status is visible

If a request lives only in someone's head or a personal text thread, it will be dropped at the next shift change.

Communication technology in healthcare

Electronic medical records changed communication in two directions. Shared records mean a referring clinician, a specialist and a nurse can see the same information. In-basket messaging replaced many phone calls and faxes. Studies also link EHRs to documentation burden, growing message volume and more screen time during visits, which can pull attention away from the patient.

Secure messaging and texting. When messages include protected health information (PHI), HIPAA expects:

• appropriate safeguards
• a business associate agreement (BAA) with any vendor that handles the data
• sharing only the minimum necessary information

Personal messengers create risk because:

• the practice has no agreement with the vendor
• messages stay on personal phones after someone leaves
• there is no central control over who can see what

Our guide to HIPAA rules for texting covers this in detail.

Telehealth and patient portals are patient-facing channels. They are separate from the tools staff use to talk to each other. For that side, see patient communication and messaging software.

Staff chat and work coordination tools handle internal, operational communication: team channels, announcements, calls, shared files and assigned follow-ups. They work alongside the EHR, scheduling and billing systems. They don't replace those systems, and they are not a substitute for clinical alerting or paging systems.

Selection basics for a staff communication tool:

• BAA availability: on which plan, and what it covers.
• Access controls: roles and permissions, SSO, two-factor authentication, and fast offboarding when someone leaves.
• Audit and retention needs: what your privacy officer requires you to keep and review.
• Ease of use for deskless staff: mobile apps and a familiar interface. If front desk and floor staff won't use it, they'll go back to personal texts.

Professional medical communication examples

These examples are for internal, operational messages. None of them includes patient identifiers, and they should stay that way.

1. Internal request (front desk to billing)

@Billing — Need confirmation on which prior-authorization form version
[Payer name] accepts as of this month. 3 requests are on hold at the front desk.
Owner: [Billing team member]
Needed by: Thursday 2:00 p.m.
I'll check this thread at 2 and call if there's no update.

2. End-of-day operational update

End of day — [Location], [Date]
Done: Printer at check-in 2 replaced. Glove order received.
Open: Callback to [Vendor] about the autoclave service date. Owner: [Name], due tomorrow 10 a.m.
Tomorrow: 7:30 huddle moved to the break room. Two front desk staff out; [Name] covering.

3. Staff announcement across locations

Schedule change, all locations
Starting [date], Saturday hours will be 8:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. at [Location A] and [Location B].
[Location C] stays closed Saturdays.
Managers: please update your team rosters by [date].
Questions: reply in this thread or contact [Name, role].

4. Escalation for an equipment or IT issue

Urgent — IT issue at [Location]
What: Workstations in exam rooms 2 and 3 can't log in since 9:15 a.m.
Impact: Clinicians using room 1 only; schedule running ~20 min behind.
Tried: Restarted both machines, checked network cable.
Need: IT to remote in or send someone by 10:30 a.m.
Contact: [Name, extension]

How to adapt them:

• Keep the first line as the ask.
• Always name an owner and a deadline.
• Close the loop in the same thread.
• If a task genuinely requires patient information, use only the minimum necessary, and only in channels your organization has approved for PHI under a BAA. Clinical details belong in the EHR.

Bringing staff communication into one place

Good communication in a practice comes down to three things: the right channel, a clear owner and a follow-up someone can see. When staff conversations are spread across personal texts, email and paper notes, all three are hard to guarantee.

Chanty is a team chat and work coordination workspace for clinic staff. It brings chats, calls, announcements, files and assigned tasks into one place, and any message can be turned into a task with an owner and a due date. It is HIPAA-compliant chat for staff with a signed BAA on the Business and Enterprise plans. The Free plan has no BAA and should not be used for PHI. It is used alongside your EHR and other clinical systems, not instead of them, and it is not a patient messaging or clinical alerting tool.

For practical next steps, read our communication strategies for healthcare teams, or see how healthcare communication software for clinics supports operational coordination.

FAQ

What is communication in healthcare?

It is the exchange of information between patients, clinicians and staff to deliver and coordinate care and run the practice. It has three layers: provider–patient, interprofessional (between clinicians), and operational communication among staff such as the front desk, billing, HR and IT.

What is medical communications?

The term has two meanings. It can refer to the medical communications industry, meaning agencies and medical writers who produce scientific, educational and promotional content for pharmaceutical and device companies. It can also mean communication in care delivery: how patients, clinicians and staff exchange health-related information.

Why is communication important in healthcare?

Communication failures are a recurring contributor to adverse events. Clear communication also supports patient understanding and trust, helps all patients get usable information, reduces staff frustration, and prevents operational problems such as no-shows, denied claims and missed supply orders.

What are the main types of communication in healthcare?

The four main types are verbal, nonverbal, written and electronic. Communication can also be grouped by direction: provider–patient, interprofessional, staff-to-staff operational, and organization-wide announcements.

What communication skills do healthcare professionals need?

The core skills are:

• active listening and teach-back
• plain language
• clear and brief written messages that state owner, task and deadline
• empathy and cultural awareness
• good judgment about which channel fits which message

Why is communication important in a multidisciplinary healthcare team?

Each team member holds part of the picture. Shared, timely information, structured formats such as SBAR, and closed-loop confirmation help make sure that nothing falls between roles, shifts or locations.

How do electronic medical records affect communication in healthcare?

EHRs give clinicians shared access to records and replace many calls and faxes with in-basket messages. They have also been linked to documentation burden, high message volume and more screen time during visits.

How does effective communication contribute to health equity?

Plain language, qualified interpreters, translated materials and teach-back help patients with different literacy levels and languages receive the same quality of information. The National CLAS Standards provide a framework for this work.

Can healthcare staff use regular messaging apps to communicate at work?

For messages that include PHI, the practice generally needs a vendor that will sign a BAA, along with access controls and policies that limit sharing to the minimum necessary. Consumer messaging apps on personal phones make access, offboarding and oversight hard to control. Many practices move work communication to an approved staff tool and keep clinical details in the EHR.