Communication and Soft Skills in Nursing Practice
Course #31351 - $18 -
- Participation Instructions
- Review the course material online or in print.
- Complete the course evaluation.
- Review your Transcript to view and print your Certificate of Completion. Your date of completion will be the date (Pacific Time) the course was electronically submitted for credit, with no exceptions. Partial credit is not available.
Soft skills are defined as the personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Strong soft skills help develop teamwork and problem-solving abilities and help nurses to communicate effectively, properly educate, engage in the workplace, and provide safe patient care. These skills can be essential in professional interactions, including in the practice of nursing. While clinical (or hard) skills are important, soft skills play a vital role in establishing strong patient-nurse relationships and ensuring the well-being of both patients and healthcare teams. This course will explore aspects of soft skills used in nursing practice, focusing primarily on communication. More specifically, different aspects of communication to enhance safe patient care, workplace engagement, and nursing education will be explored.
This course is designed for nurses in all practice settings.
The purpose of this course is to provide nurses with strategies to support the soft skills needed to provide optimal patient care and enhance professionalism in health care.
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:
- Define soft skills.
- Provide examples of soft skills.
- Describe how proper communication enhances safe patient care, interprofessional collaboration, and nursing education.
- Analyze barriers to proper communication and how to overcome them.
Mary Franks, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, is a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner, educator, and healthcare consultant dedicated to advancing evidence-based practice and improving patient outcomes. Her career spans primary care, urgent care, telehealth, and chronic disease management, with a strong commitment to delivering high-quality, patient-centered care across diverse clinical settings. Her professional interests include preventive care, quality improvement, and patient engagement, with experience contributing to clinical education programs and accreditation-aligned continuing education designed to translate evidence into practice. Alongside her clinical work, Mary serves as both a lecturer and adjunct faculty member in graduate and undergraduate nursing programs, committed to shaping the next generation of nursing professionals. As a doctoral candidate, her scholarship centers on implementing sustainable, evidence-based strategies to improve advance care planning and health outcomes in underserved primary care settings.
Contributing faculty, Mary Franks, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.
Margo A. Halm, RN, PhD, NEA-BC, FAAN
The division planner has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.
Sarah Campbell
The Director of Development and Academic Affairs has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.
The purpose of NetCE is to provide challenging curricula to assist healthcare professionals to raise their levels of expertise while fulfilling their continuing education requirements, thereby improving the quality of healthcare.
Our contributing faculty members have taken care to ensure that the information and recommendations are accurate and compatible with the standards generally accepted at the time of publication. The publisher disclaims any liability, loss or damage incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents. Participants are cautioned about the potential risk of using limited knowledge when integrating new techniques into practice.
It is the policy of NetCE not to accept commercial support. Furthermore, commercial interests are prohibited from distributing or providing access to this activity to learners.
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The role of implicit biases on healthcare outcomes has become a concern, as there is some evidence that implicit biases contribute to health disparities, professionals' attitudes toward and interactions with patients, quality of care, diagnoses, and treatment decisions. This may produce differences in help-seeking, diagnoses, and ultimately treatments and interventions. Implicit biases may also unwittingly produce professional behaviors, attitudes, and interactions that reduce patients' trust and comfort with their provider, leading to earlier termination of visits and/or reduced adherence and follow-up. Disadvantaged groups are marginalized in the healthcare system and vulnerable on multiple levels; health professionals' implicit biases can further exacerbate these existing disadvantages.
Interventions or strategies designed to reduce implicit bias may be categorized as change-based or control-based. Change-based interventions focus on reducing or changing cognitive associations underlying implicit biases. These interventions might include challenging stereotypes. Conversely, control-based interventions involve reducing the effects of the implicit bias on the individual's behaviors. These strategies include increasing awareness of biased thoughts and responses. The two types of interventions are not mutually exclusive and may be used synergistically.