To read this content please select one of the options below:

React, reframe and engage. Establishing a receiver mindset for more effective safety negotiations

Melanie Barlow (Faculty of Health Sciences, Australian Catholic University, Brisbane, Australia) (School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia)
Bernadette Watson (Department of English and Communication, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, China)
Kate Morse (College of Nursing and Health Professions, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA)
Elizabeth Jones (School of Psychology, Monash University Malaysia, Subang Jaya, Malaysia)
Fiona Maccallum (School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia)

Journal of Health Organization and Management

ISSN: 1477-7266

Article publication date: 26 September 2023

Issue publication date: 29 October 2024

235

Abstract

Purpose

The response of the receiver to a voiced patient safety concern is frequently cited as a barrier to health professionals speaking up. The authors describe a novel Receiver Mindset Framework (RMF) to help health professionals understand the importance of their response when spoken up to.

Design/methodology/approach

The framework draws on the broader receiver-focussed literature and integrates innovative findings from a series of empirical studies. These studies examined different receiver behaviour within vignettes, retrospective descriptions of real interactions and behaviour in a simulated interaction.

Findings

The authors' findings indicated that speaking up is an intergroup interaction where social identities, context and speaker stance intersect, directly influencing both perceptions of and responses to the message. The authors' studies demonstrated that when spoken up to, health professionals poorly manage their emotions and ineffectively clarify the speaker's concerns. Currently, targeted training for receivers is overwhelmingly absent from speaking-up programmes. The receiver mindset framework provides an evidence-based, healthcare specific, receiver-focussed framework to inform programmes.

Originality/value

Grounded in communication accommodation theory (CAT), the resulting framework shifts speaking up training from being only speaker skill focussed, to training that recognises speaking up as a mutual negotiation between the healthcare speaker and receiver. This framework provides healthcare professionals with a novel approach to use in response to speaking up that enhances their ability to listen, understand and engage in point-of-care negotiations to ensure the physical and psychological safety of patients and staff.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This study was part of the author’s doctoral work, which was supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. There are no conflicts of interest to declare.

Citation

Barlow, M., Watson, B., Morse, K., Jones, E. and Maccallum, F. (2024), "React, reframe and engage. Establishing a receiver mindset for more effective safety negotiations", Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 38 No. 7, pp. 992-1008. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-06-2023-0171

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles