15-16 JUNE MONTECATINI TERME (ITALY) International Society for Communication Science and Medicine 15-16 June 2015 The Golden Bridge: Communication and Patient Safety Montecatini Terme (Italy) ENDORSED BY Comune di Montecatini Terme 1 ENDORSED BY Comune di Montecatini Terme ISCOME 2015 SUPPORTERS Supporters The ISCOME 2015 conference is organized in collaboration with the Center of Patient Safety of the Italian Tuscany Region. ISCOME particularly thanks Tommaso Bellandi, Riccardo Tartaglia, Elena Beleffi, Giulio Toccafondi and Sara Albolino for their outstanding support. In addition, the following organizations are supporting ISCOME 2015 as patrons: 15-16 JUNE MONTECATINI TERME (ITALY) WELCOME TO THE ISCOME 2015 CONFERENCE Dear delegates, It is my pleasure to welcome you to the ISCOME 2015 conference in Montecatini Terme. For this year’s meeting, ISCOME has chosen the theme “The Golden Bridge: Communication and Patient Safety.” I would like to take a minute to reflect on this theme in light of the current state of affairs and the broad knowledge that we have accumulated in the field of patient safety over the past few years. Among numerous renowned speakers at this year’s conference, we have the honor to host and welcome a key figure in patient safety who many consider the “founding parent” of the patient safety discipline, Sir Liam Donaldson, who states in his plenary abstract that “despite a commitment to providing safe care becoming a declared priority in almost all healthcare systems of the world over the last decade, true progress in reducing the burden of avoidable harm has been very disappointing.” One of the key problems Sir Liam will highlight in his ISCOME 2015 plenary address is “weak communication at all levels.” Underlining this notion, the literature has been consistently pointing at communication as one of the main contributing factors to patient safety events. At the same time, effective communication has been recognized as a key mechanism to preventing patient harm. Despite its substantial function in the provision of safe care, communication interventions have been rare and not as impactful as they should have been. In other words, communication as a “golden path” to better and safer care has not affected impressive improvements. The ISCOME 2015 conference theme is dedicated to this phenomenon and reframes communication as a “golden bridge.” Golden as a reflection of the valuable and indispensable function of communication in healthcare delivery, and bridge implying the essential necessity to establish interdisciplinary collaborations between communication science and healthcare that join existing bodies of knowledge and draw new transdisciplinary pathways to impact the quality and safety of healthcare in visible ways. To dedicate some intensive time to this goal within the scope of its two main conference days, ISCOME 2015 is featuring two innovative roundtable discussion panels that will shed interdisciplinary perspectives onto two critical communication-prone challenges in the patient safety domain. The first panel focuses on cross-professional interactions, which are recognized in the literature as a main contributor to patient harm. In other words, when providers communicate well with each other, patient health is improved, and when communication fails, health outcomes are significantly compromised. From this panel again emerges the notion of the “Golden Bridge”, implying that casting a bridge across professions improves the quality and safety of care for all involved. Communication constitutes the means to building this bridge. The second ISCOME 2015 roundtable discussion panel invites leading scholars from a variety of disciplines to immerse themselves in the current state of knowledge and to explore heuristic directions in the area of safe provider-patient communication. We are honored to host well-known thought-leaders on this panel who will close with some reflections on directions for future transdisciplinary research projects and practice solutions. As briefly mentioned above, we are particularly pleased to welcome Sir Liam Donaldson to the ISCOME 2015 conference, who will deliver the final plenary address on Tuesday afternoon reflecting on the horizons for patient safety. Sir Liam Donaldson’s address will be responded to in a closing roundtable discussion that features well-known influential decision-makers in health care and patient safety. Led by WHO patient safety champion Brian Stafford and journalist Roberto Satolli, the invited panelists will reflect on Sir Liam’s plenary address and the conference discussions at large from an applied point of view. This is the second conference ISCOME (formerly the “COME” group) is organizing on this important and stimulating topic area, and I am very pleased with the interactivity that has emerged among the current ISCOME members during the past two years, which evidences that the mission of ISCOME is at work. Since COME 2013, we have successfully cast a fruitful bridge between numerous communication scientists and scholars in health-related fields, and ISCOME has become a sustainable and visible platform for scientists and practitioners to exchange perspectives, reflect on existing data, collaborate on research and practice interventions, and develop interdisciplinary implementations that promise to trigger measurable impact. This interdisciplinary interactivity is the driving engine and still today maintains the existence of ISCOME as a young and dynamic society. It is in that sense that I encourage everyone – presenters and non-presenters at this year’s conference – to actively join the group and engage yourself in this important and stimulating dialogue. Because if there is one common denominator that brought all of us to Montecatini Terme this year, it is that common purpose to engage in innovative transdisciplinary directions that will make healthcare a better and safer process for everyone. On behalf of ISCOME, I wish you a productive, satisfying and successful conference experience and look forward to welcoming you to the group! Collegiate regards, Prof. Dr. Annegret Hannawa ISCOME President 5 ISCOME 2015 CONFERENCE WELCOME TO THE ISCOME 2015 CONFERENCE Dear Guests, My warmest welcome to Montecatini Terme! I am very pleased and honored to host the ISCOME 2015 conference at our beautiful venue Salone Regina. Montecatini Terme is well-known for its hospitality and the quality of life it offers to its inhabitants and visitors. The properties of the thermal water springing from its soil have been known since the times of the ancient Romans. Even back in those times, pilgrims and soldiers visited here to take a warm bath. More recently, in the 19th century, the curative effects of the water to treat digestive diseases emerged while the mud started to be used to treat muscle-skeletal disorders. At that time, our magnificent thermal establishment was built, restored, and then enlarged during the early 20th century. Today, our mud is also being used for make-up products by national and international companies. For example, Madonna’s natural beauty products for skin care are made with our mud! Montecatini Terme became famous as a touristic place in the 19th century, when Leopold, the Duke of Tuscany, often visited with his court of nobles and servants. His former holiday house, located in Viale Verdi, now hosts the administration of Terme’s company and public exhibitions. The most famous amateur of Montecatini during the 19th century was certainly the famous romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi, who in fact is remembered by the naming of the city’s main avenue The tourism increased after the second World War, especially during the “maginificent sixties”. At that time, Montecatini Terme was one of the most popular places for the “dolce vita”, also for the nightlife with many well-known actors, musicians and sports champions who spent their vacations here. You can see the names of the stars on the plates positioned on the sidewalk of Viale Verdi, just like in Hollywood! During the past two centuries, the lower end of town has significantly grown in size, while Montecatini Alto (the higher end of town) maintained its original middle-age flavor. In the meantime, the town has become a popular destination for scientific conferences, especially in the medical arena, thanks to the quality of the hotels, restaurants and facilities, as well as for the quiet and relaxing atmosphere that facilitates reflection, creativity and social relations. In the past five years, Montecatini Terme has hosted important events, such as the World Championship of Cycling, the Miss Italia Beauty Contest, and international exhibitions of visual arts at the new museum located on the first floor of our City Hall. To conclude, Montecatini Terme lies in the heart of beautiful Tuscany and offers to be a starting point for your visit of our beautiful region – both its cultural heritage in the cities, and the more natural destinations that can be reached in short one-day trips. In this spirit, I wish you a successful conference and hope you will enjoy your stay in our town and region! Warm regards, Giuseppe Bellandi Mayor of Montecatini Terme 6 15-16 JUNE MONTECATINI TERME (ITALY) THE ISCOME 2015 CONFERENCE TEAM Annegret F. Hannawa, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Health Communication at the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the University of Lugano (Università della Svizzera italiana). Prior to joining USI, she served as Assistant Professor of Health Communication and Empirical Research