ISBAR+ a communication tool to advocate for patients

Introduction Recognising the importance of social determinants of health is a key part of the curriculum for health practitioners. The ability to advocate on behalf of patients is a competency that demonstrates enacting this understanding in practice. Communication frameworks are used to structure difficult conversations in multiple settings, notably handover. There is no commonly accepted communication framework to structure a patient advocacy conversation. Approach We assembled a team with skills in patient advocacy, healthcare communication, community advocacy, education and business negotiation to identify the knowledge, skills and attitudes required and to develop a framework suitable for this purpose. We chose to adapt the ISBAR framework as an existing communication framework commonly used for handover. Outcomes ISBAR+ is a framework that is based on a person-centred approach and ‘integrated negotiation’. ‘Intention and Inquiry’ involves a compassionate understanding of the patient’s position. ‘Situation’ is a succinct framing of the problem. ‘Background’ is the information required for the decision-maker to make a person-centred decision. The next step is ‘alignment’ of the priorities of the patient, practitioner and decision-maker. ‘Response’ is the proposed solution, and ‘+’ (‘plus’) is the actions taken for implementation. Conclusions ISBAR+ provides a framework for conversations advocating on behalf of patients that draws from the literature around advocacy inside and outside health. A communication framework allows the development and evaluation of interventions to teach and promote this critical function to promote person-centred care

From the Editor : Continuous Publication Model

Welcome to the 7th Volume of the Health Education in Practice: Journal of Research for Professional Learning (HEPJ).  We are pleased to open the first volume of HEPJ published under a continuous publication model. The continuous publication model will allow us to maintain our commitment to increase the visibility of the knowledge published on HEPJ by expediting its dissemination, with articles being published as soon as they undergo our rigorous process of peer review and production. By eliminating the need to wait for a predetermined number of articles to form a volume, we aim to provide authors with the immediacy they desire and, consequently, increase the likelihood of their work receiving timely citations. I hope you enjoy reading our journal and I look forward to sharing more papers in this volume in the coming months

Letter to a seabird

In May 2020, when I should have been experiencing spring in Scotland, I was instead living in Queensland, surfing the point breaks of the southern Gold Coast as the autumn swells rolled in. It was there that I noticed a bird I had never seen before and didn’t know how to identify. Over coming weeks and months, I would watch this bird and others like it dive for fish from a great height, mesmerised. I wanted to know more. In my strange/letter, addressed to the birds, I track my attempts to identify and understand them via close observation and research, a process that led me back to Scotland through Bryan Nelson’s monograph, The Gannet (1978). I trace the way in which I began to feel a sense of kinship with this animal, while also interrogating the limits of that kinship, amid a backdrop of border closures and uncertainty that was the strange southern winter of 2020

EU Cultural Policy: Divided institutional interrelationships and strategic changes in policy development

The EU has engaged with cultural policy especially after the Maastricht treaty in 1992. To compare the division within two EU institutions, this paper mainly analyses the EU official documents: the “European Agenda for culture in a globalizing world”, published by the European Commission in 2007 – which was the first “Communication” regarding cultural policy – and “Work Plan for Culture” which was published as “Conclusions” by the Council of the European Union. The aim of this paper is to reveal that the Council focus only on a part of the policy of the European Commission on culture. It also concluded that the main strategies of the EU cultural policy have changed to incorporate some non-profitable aims

Ann-Marie Priest. My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood: La Trobe University Press in conjunction with Black Inc, 2022. 471 pages. AU$37.99 ISBN 9781760642341 (Paperback)

Nathan Hobby reviews Ann-Marie Priest's My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood (2022)

How Do Online Actors Navigate Facebook In Communicating Vaccination Messages

Background: Factually, health information is important to tackle issues around vaccination. The distribution of false information from online actors about the efficacy of vaccination online and on social media platforms has also been on the rise. This paper examines how various vaccination activists use Facebook to communicate critical messages about vaccination in Australia. Aims: This paper argues that online actors leverage and negotiate the affordances of Facebook in different ways to communicate vaccination messages. Social media affordances are platform features that enhance, promote, or encourage communication practices and social interactions (Bucher & Helmond, 2017). It is also a relationship between the technology and the users and the possible or actual outcomes from the user's interactions with that platform (Evans, Pearce, Vitak, & Treem, 2017). Methods: As this paper focuses on vaccination contents produced by online anti-vaccination groups, data was gathered using semi-structured interviews to identify specific techniques and practices used to communicate messages about childhood vaccination in Australia Results: This paper offers an understanding of the specificity and complexity of communication techniques and practices of online actors on Facebook and how that influences the understanding of vaccination in Australia. Conclusions: Findings from this paper significantly show an understanding of the evolving nature of social media platforms. Additionally, understanding online users' communication techniques, practices, and communities have uncovered some novel strategies for navigating Facebook