A New Structure of Attention? Open Disclosure of Adverse Events to Patients and Their Families

TY - JOUR

T1 - A New Structure of Attention?

T2 - Open Disclosure of Adverse Events to Patients and Their Families

AU - Iedema, Rick

AU - Jorm, Christine

AU - Wakefield, John

AU - Ryan, Cherie

AU - Sorensen, Ros

PY - 2009/6/1

Y1 - 2009/6/1

N2 - This article presents an inquiry into how clinicians realize a health policy reform initiative called Open Disclosure. Open Disclosure mandates that discussions with patients/family and team staff about “adverse events” are now no longer ad hoc, individualized, and without consequences for how the work is done, but planned, collaborative, and leading to systems change. The article presents an empirical analysis of a corpus of interviews about the impact of Open Disclosure on clinicians' practices. It situates Open Disclosure in the context of arguments that health care workers are increasingly expected to do “emotional labor” with patients and their families, in that staff are advised to practise “reflexive listening” as a means of managing patients' and family members' emotions in response to incidents. The analysis suggests that thanks to the intensity of Open Disclosure interactions, clinicians may be introduced to an affective-interactive space that they were hitherto unaware of and unable to enter or attain what Nigel Thrift calls “a new structure of attention.” A New Structure of Attention?Open Disclosure of Adverse Events to Patients and Their Families (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240281322_A_New_Structure_of_AttentionOpen_Disclosure_of_Adverse_Events_to_Patients_and_Their_Families [accessed Mar 19 2018].

AB - This article presents an inquiry into how clinicians realize a health policy reform initiative called Open Disclosure. Open Disclosure mandates that discussions with patients/family and team staff about “adverse events” are now no longer ad hoc, individualized, and without consequences for how the work is done, but planned, collaborative, and leading to systems change. The article presents an empirical analysis of a corpus of interviews about the impact of Open Disclosure on clinicians' practices. It situates Open Disclosure in the context of arguments that health care workers are increasingly expected to do “emotional labor” with patients and their families, in that staff are advised to practise “reflexive listening” as a means of managing patients' and family members' emotions in response to incidents. The analysis suggests that thanks to the intensity of Open Disclosure interactions, clinicians may be introduced to an affective-interactive space that they were hitherto unaware of and unable to enter or attain what Nigel Thrift calls “a new structure of attention.” A New Structure of Attention?Open Disclosure of Adverse Events to Patients and Their Families (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240281322_A_New_Structure_of_AttentionOpen_Disclosure_of_Adverse_Events_to_Patients_and_Their_Families [accessed Mar 19 2018].

U2 - 10.1177/0261927X08330614

DO - 10.1177/0261927X08330614

M3 - Article

SN - 0261-927X

VL - 28

SP - 139

EP - 157

JO - JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

JF - JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

IS - 2

ER -