The Department of English is dedicated to deploying our research expertise to produce a beneficial impact on society, culture, public policy and services, healthcare, the economy and the environment, and overall quality of life for individuals and communities. Research within the department has had demonstrable significant beneficial effect on healthcare professionals (hospital administrators, doctors, nurses and their patients), education professionals (teachers and their students), business professionals (for instance, improving communication practices for trained lawyers), as well as for public engagement in the arts, culture and heritage sectors.  

Here is an insight into Prof. Jack Pun’s Impact Case Study: Building effective clinical communication for medical professionals to enhance patient safety and healthcare.

Over the last two decades, research around the world has consistently identified poor communication practices in hospitals as a major cause of critical incidents — adverse events leading to avoidable patient harm. Effective communication among clinicians (e.g. nurses) and between clinicians and patients is therefore critical to the provision of safe and quality healthcare. To address this, our research in Hong Kong shows that targeted, evidence-based training will improve quality and safety of patient care by improving healthcare professionals’ communication skills. With the training and on-going research, we can help Hong Kong nursing sector lead the way in patient care and professional development.

To explore the nurses’ perceptions and their actual handover practices, Prof. Jack Pun, together with his collaborators, Hospital Authority (Nursing), School of Nursing at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, set up a large-scale study in over 40 large hospitals in Hong Kong. Using video recordings, actual observations and analysing nurses’ authentic spoken interactions at handovers, his team developed a simulation approach to train over 600 frontline nurses for professional development and enhance their quality of communication at nursing handovers. Pre and Post-training interviews and observations were conducted in order to evaluate the changes of their handover practice and the effectiveness of training.  In the training, the nurses learnt about the latest research findings and approaches to effective handover practices and two communication protocols, ISBAR and CARE, which were originally developed in Australia and currently being adapted to use in Hong Kong.