Beyond Persuasion: The Healthcare Manager's Guide to Strategic Communication Book

Shows healthcare leaders how to improve their written and oral communication skills at the interpersonal, group, and organizational levels, providing strategies for conducting meetings, answering e- mail, and fielding questions from the media. After an overview of the foundations of communication in healthcare management, coverage includes advice on communicating with internal audiences, e.g. board members and the public relations department; external communications; crisis communication. Parsons teaches in the bachelor of public relations degree program at Mount Saint Vincent University, Nova Scotia.

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Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Richard L. O'Brien, MD(Creighton University)
Description:This a guide through four progressive levels of communication skills and challenges. It considers personal traits, personal communication skills, different means of communication, and communicating effectively in special situations and to special audiences.
Purpose:The purpose of the book is "to provide [healthcare managers] with the knowledge, attitudes and skills to use communication strategies and tactics to manage . . . relationships with important constituencies.
Audience:It is intended for healthcare managers, more specifically CEOs of healthcare organizations.
Features:The author provides guidance in the development of personal communication skills, appropriate planning of communications, and different modes of communicating, including speaking, writing, and the use of visual aids. She also addresses the best means of dealing with both internal and external publics, different audiences, and dealing with crises. There are bulleted points for emphasis and each chapter ends with iteration of key points.
Assessment:The style is relaxed, the text is terse and to the point. There are good hard copy and electronic references. It is an easy to use book. However, I am skeptical about its usefulness for CEOs of healthcare organizations. There is little or nothing here with which to disagree, but the points made are so intuitive and so readily learned through experience that it is hard to imagine a successful healthcare CEO who doesn't already have this knowledge and these skills, at least to a significant extent. In fact, a CEO lacking these skills is not likely to survive long or even to have become a CEO in the modern healthcare environment. I suppose it might be used as a refresher and reinforcement for CEOs. Given the basic level of its messages, it is probably more useful for students of healthcare administration.