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The professional skills of healthcare professionals

Healthcare professionals are one of the groups most highly valued by the Spanish people. In fact, according to a study by GfK Verein in 2016, nurses, pharmacists, emergency healthcare professionals and doctors were in the top 10 professionals with the highest degree of trust, a list that is headed by firefighters.

To continue leading this curious ranking, given scientific and technological changes but also the demands of the profession, this group must be constantly learning, so continuous training is of fundamental importance.

However, it is precisely in the social work performed by healthcare professionals, which is one of the reasons why they enjoy the trust of the people, where their training goes beyond understanding a disease or illness. We are talking about professional skills.

What are professional skills?

If there is something that most companies agree on, it is the fact that a company’s most valuable asset is its employees. For this reason, it is essential that they obtain the knowledge and professional skills they need for their professional advancement.

Professional skills are understood as a set of essential skills for the professional growth of competitive and differential employees (in this case, healthcare professionals).

How do benefit healthcare professionals?

Basically, by developing a series of non-medical skills that are very important for their daily work. These include:

► The doctor-patient communication, meaning the ability to strongly influence the following of a treatment, satisfaction, active listening, health care, etc.

► Public speaking. How to communicate effectively.

► Time management. Optimisation and updating techniques.

► Decision-making. How to make the right decision.

► Negotiation skills. How to reach a consensus.

► Empathy. A recent doctoral thesis that surveyed 267 healthcare professionals from the Health Region of Lleida revealed that more empathetic doctors have fewer visits and prescribe better.

► Other: creative thinking, critical capacity, problem solving, and other skills that help the professional to be prepared in various work situations.

Development of the content on professional skills

Responding to this need, there are companies specialising in content on professional skills that offer this type of technique for healthcare professionals. This is a demanding profession due to its continuous training and long working hours, but it is also respected, valued and trusted by everyone.