Civilian-Military Collaboration before and during COVID-19 Pandemic—A Systematic Review and a Pilot Survey among Practitioners

Due to the similarity in skills and assets, Civilian-Military collaboration has emerged as one of the most reliable partnerships during the disaster and public health emergency management to address all necessary elements of surge capacity, i.e., staff, stuff, structure (space), and systems. This study aimed to evaluate this collaboration before and during the coronavirus 2019 pandemic. The outcomes of the systematic review revealed several published reports on successful civilian-military collaboration and proposed a need for further improvement. One hundred sixty-six individuals from 19 countries responded to nine questions, included in an online survey with the possibility to leave comments if necessary. The questionnaire referred to elements such as command and control, safety, communication, assessment, triage, treatment, and transport, as the crucial components of emergency management. The comprehensive examination of the survey results together with registered comments revealed a possible improvement in collaboration particularly on the strategic levels, i.e., meetings at the command-and-control level, safety, communication, and networking issues. While logistic collaboration seemed to be unchanged, the practical parts of the collaboration, i.e., clinical and non-clinical operational partnership (Triage and Treatment), mutual education, training, and operational understanding of each organization remained unchanged. In conclusion, although the current pandemic may have facilitated a more intense collaboration between civilian and military healthcare organizations, it lacks practical partnership and operative engagement, representing two crucial elements necessary for harmony and compatibility of both systems. Such collaboration may require a political will and perhaps a mutual civilian-military authority.

Revisiting Leadership Communication: A Need for Conversation

Effective communication is critical for leaders to influence and create an impact within and outside organizations. Despite this, questions are raised regarding the efficacy & effectiveness of organizational leaders in conducting meaningful communication & conversations with their teams. Often, organizations are unsure of the specific leadership communication attributes and their outcomes at the individual, team and organizational levels. The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of leaders’ communication on the feelings and thoughts of subordinates and to identify attributes for a possible measure of ‘effective leadership communication’. On the basis of ‘communicative leadership’ theorization by Johansson et al. (2014) , primary data was collected from employees’ across organizations. The study reveals gaps in the leader’s communication competence and suggests a need for more meaningful conversation with subordinates. The study proposes a tool for leadership communication assessment comprising two factors: transforming thoughts and transforming individuals.

Patient perceptions of allied health student communication and interpersonal skills: A cross-sectional study

Introduction: Effective patient–practitioner communication contributes to patient health outcomes by strengthening therapeutic relationships and, in the process, contributing to overall quality of patient care. Despite the growth of student-led university teaching clinics, little research has investigated communication skills within this context. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the patient-perceived levels of communication and interpersonal skills within a student-led allied health clinic.Methods: The Communication Assessment Tool (CAT) was used to collect cross-sectional data on patients’ perceptions of student communication and interpersonal skills within an osteopathy teaching clinic. Data were analysed via descriptive and inferential statistics.Results: According to the CAT, patients perceived the students’ communication and interpersonal skills to be “excellent” overall (97.2%). No significant differences were found between percentage of “excellent” responses and gender (p = .600), number of consultations (p = .374) or pain duration (p = .741).Conclusions: Patients in this setting perceive student communication and interpersonal skills to be of a high standard. This can contribute positively to the patient–practitioner therapeutic alliance and may improve overall health outcomes. These findings have implications for communication training within student-led health professions clinics and tertiary curricula more broadly.

Evaluating and Enhancing Communication Skills in Four Adolescents with Profound and Multiple Disabilities

<p>Individuals with profound and multiple disability (PMD) experience more than one type of disability, typically severe to profound intellectual disability and significant motoric impairment. These complex impairments negatively affect many aspects of the person’s functioning, such as daily living, academic, and social skills. Persons with PMD will often experience fluctuating levels of awareness, and often have such severe communication deficits that they rely on the use prelinguistic behaviours (PLBs) to communicate. It is often difficult for those working with these individuals to identify preferences and behavioural states indicative of engagement and motivation. As a result, these individuals often experience social isolation and a lower quality of life. The purpose of this research project was to evaluate the overall level of functioning and communicative abilities of four adolescents with PMD and identify instructional procedures that might enhance their natural method of communication, such that they are more readily understood. This was achieved through assessment and intervention based methods. First, the repertoire of forms and functions of specific PLBs in four participants with PMD were identified. Then, circumstances under which behaviours indicative of alertness and engagement were assessed. Next, the author validated the function of specific PLBs used to request the continuation or access to preferred stimuli. Subsequently, three intervention case studies were implemented to strengthen and/or enhance the PLB requesting behaviours of three participants using microswitch technology and individualised instructional strategies. Results suggested that individuals with PMD can and do demonstrate consistent PLBs used to request access to preferred stimuli. Specific PLBs of three participants were strengthened and/or enhanced, with two of these participants able to use a microswitch to activate a speech generating device to produce a communicative request. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the overall outcomes for each participant and the challenges of implementing a whole communication assessment and intervention approach for this population of learners.</p>

Evaluating and Enhancing Communication Skills in Four Adolescents with Profound and Multiple Disabilities

<p>Individuals with profound and multiple disability (PMD) experience more than one type of disability, typically severe to profound intellectual disability and significant motoric impairment. These complex impairments negatively affect many aspects of the person’s functioning, such as daily living, academic, and social skills. Persons with PMD will often experience fluctuating levels of awareness, and often have such severe communication deficits that they rely on the use prelinguistic behaviours (PLBs) to communicate. It is often difficult for those working with these individuals to identify preferences and behavioural states indicative of engagement and motivation. As a result, these individuals often experience social isolation and a lower quality of life. The purpose of this research project was to evaluate the overall level of functioning and communicative abilities of four adolescents with PMD and identify instructional procedures that might enhance their natural method of communication, such that they are more readily understood. This was achieved through assessment and intervention based methods. First, the repertoire of forms and functions of specific PLBs in four participants with PMD were identified. Then, circumstances under which behaviours indicative of alertness and engagement were assessed. Next, the author validated the function of specific PLBs used to request the continuation or access to preferred stimuli. Subsequently, three intervention case studies were implemented to strengthen and/or enhance the PLB requesting behaviours of three participants using microswitch technology and individualised instructional strategies. Results suggested that individuals with PMD can and do demonstrate consistent PLBs used to request access to preferred stimuli. Specific PLBs of three participants were strengthened and/or enhanced, with two of these participants able to use a microswitch to activate a speech generating device to produce a communicative request. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the overall outcomes for each participant and the challenges of implementing a whole communication assessment and intervention approach for this population of learners.</p>

Competences of Adult Learning Facilitators in Community Service Learning: A Review of Literatures

Community Service Learning (CSL) is designed to help communities in solving their social problems. The role of adult learning facilitators is important to ensure that all the programs of CSL are running well. This study aims to investigate the competences of adult learning facilitators in community service learning programs. The methodology used in this study is literature review. A total of 85 journal papers were identified by the search machine. However, only 15 articles selected to be reviewed in this study. The result shows that there are five main competences that should be mastered by learning facilitators in community services, such as: Knowledge, Management, Communication, Assessment, and Motivation (KoMCAMo). It can be concluded that the competences of adult learning facilitators play significant role to implement the CSL among community`s members. For recommendation, the future projects related to CSL need to require competent facilitators to enhance participation of community for joining the programs. The regular trainings are encouraged to adult learning facilitators to create an effective CLS`s program.

Communication Metrics for Human-Autonomy Teaming: Lessons Learned from us Army Gunnery Field Experiments

The development of more effective human-autonomy teaming (HAT) will depend on the availability of validated measures of their performance. Communication provides a critical window into a team’s interactions, states, and performance, but much remains to be learned about how to successfully carry over communication measures from the human teaming context to the HAT context. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the implementation of three communication assessment methodologies used for two Wingman Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration field experiments. These field experiments involved Soldiers and Marines maneuvering vehicles and engaging in live-fire target gunnery, all with the assistance of intelligent autonomous systems. Crew communication data were analyzed using aggregate communication flow, relational event models, and linguistic similarity. We discuss how the assessments were implemented, what they revealed about the teaming between humans and autonomy, and lessons learned for future implementation of communication measurement approaches in the HAT context.