High-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) saves lives, and so does skilled communication. Nearly 20 years ago, the report “Silence Kills” described the negative impact on patients in the hospital when health care workers fail to communicate with one another effectively. Since then, the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) has worked tirelessly to promote the value of skilled communication and other factors crucial to creating healthy work environments to enhance health care safety.

In their article, McDermott and colleagues demonstrate the importance of skilled communication in pediatric resuscitation attempts via an intervention to train quality CPR coaches. The role of the quality CPR coach was to use skilled communication to provide real-time feedback on the effectiveness of chest compressions during pediatric resuscitation. After the intervention, survival outcomes improved thanks to a significant increase in coach presence on resuscitation teams and a measurable improvement in some CPR metrics. Skilled communication saves lives....

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