Communication in Healthcare: Reflections from the 2025 ICCH Symposium

How we choose to communicate – the way we share knowledge and express ideas, gain and develop our understanding of something – holds a lot of power, particularly in healthcare settings when we're talking about health issues.

This summer, I attended the 2025 Symposium of the International Consortium for Communication in Health Care (ICCH) at Lancaster University. As I sat in the audience listening to researchers from across the globe, I was reminded of the fundamental role that communication and engagement play - of how important it is to listen properly, to take time to share information and advice in a way that works as a mutually beneficial exchange.

The symposium focused on how communication shapes health outcomes, patient experiences and engagement, as well as how we understand illness and wellbeing. Over two days, researchers discussed chronic conditions, infectious diseases, vaccine communication, and healthcare interactions. It was interesting to learn about the different research approaches and observe how peer feedback offered prompts and further insights to pursue.

As Communications and Partnerships Manager of the Future of Human Reproduction (FoHR) team, I was keen to learn more about research methods in healthcare communications. I often find myself focused on what the result of research is, what its impact is and how it can be applied – rather than learning about how the research was done. Attending this event gave me time to learn from a range of experts on different approaches, helping me better understand good research practice and appropriate methodologies for research in healthcare settings.

Day One: Chronic Conditions and Vaccine Communication

The event began with a panel looking at chronic and long-term health.

Susy Macqueen, Diana Slade and Suzanne Raine (Australian National University) spoke about their work analysing patient interactions for people hospitalised for heart failure. They suggested that the nature and quality of these interactions play a key role in condition management. To self-manage effectively, people need to be health literate, that is, they need to understand their condition and feel confident in having responsibility for their care. The responsibility for achieving health literacy through communication is shared equally between healthcare professional and patient.

Emma Putland and Gavin Brookes (Lancaster University) then shared research on how we talk about and visualise dementia, and how this shapes the lives of people living with the condition.

Their findings showed that AI-generated representations consistently reproduced stigmatising stereotypes, positioning dementia as a "living death" rather than reflecting the diverse reality of people's actual experiences. Our first impressions are often informed by images and text in communications or marketing campaigns like these, and increasingly AI is used as a tool to create them.

The idea that first impressions count is not new, but what I continue to think about is how my choice of tools and methods as a communication’s professional shapes the conversations the FoHR team and I have. How we use AI content and tools matters. How can I use them to my advantage - for efficiency and reach - whilst remaining aware of how algorithms and AI-generated content might reproduce stereotypes, bias, or an echo chamber? What checks and balances can I put in place to ensure the conversations we want to start and hold as a research team are inclusive, taking into account lived and professional experience for informed, impactful research?

Infectious diseases, pandemics and relationship-centred care

The second panel, on infectious diseases and pandemics, opened with Elizabeth Rider (Harvard Medical School) presenting work, done through the lens of a pandemic, on how stronger relationships and communication skills can improve care, reduce burnout, and help teams work better together. Olga Zayts-Spence (University of Hong Kong) then presented on the mental health of university graduates in a post-COVID world.

Both speakers focused on context and how relationships with others matter - whether in career transitions, leadership, academic or healthcare settings. Reflecting on these sessions, the questions that came to mind were the kind I'd usually consider in my coaching and facilitation work, rather than my FoHR role. How might we better support people through change and identity shifts? Do we need to take a more trauma-informed approach? How can we create environments where people feel safe and supported to engage over time? As a research team, what is our role in this?

In the same panel – but with quite a different focus – Prasad Wimalaratne (University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka) introduced us to Mo-Buzz, a mobile and social media intervention used in Sri Lanka to monitor and prevent dengue outbreaks. Mo-Buzz is a mobile app that connects health authorities and communities to tackle dengue together. Health inspectors use it to record site visits and monitor outbreaks on a live map. The public can use it to report symptoms, share photos of mosquito breeding sites, and receive alerts about dengue in their area.

Both health professional and public audiences were receptive to the app. However, uptake was relatively low. This appears to relate to the benefits of use not being well established; there isn't yet a proven track record of effectiveness. A communications campaign to boost awareness and use of the app is being developed, showing that even the best innovations need good communication to achieve impact.

How the pandemic changed vaccine communication

The final panel explored how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people think and talk about vaccines, and what this means for public health communication. Speakers highlighted how pandemic experiences have complicated vaccine messaging and why understanding public language, concerns and trust is essential for better health communication.

Elena Semino (Lancaster University), one of FoHR's Co-Investigators, talked about how COVID-19 vaccines didn't match traditionally accepted definitions of vaccines as disease-preventers leading to some people questioning whether they're "real" vaccines at all. This mismatch between existing understanding held prior to COVID-19, messaging during the pandemic, and people's lived experience, has eroded vaccine confidence. This suggests we need clearer communication that distinguishes between vaccines that prevent infection and those that reduce severity. It's a reminder that language matters and plays a role in how people trust information given.

This led naturally to Svenja Adolphs, Emma McClaughlin and Sara Vilar-Lluch (all Nottingham Trent University), who discussed what motivates and prevents vaccine uptake, and which messages and words build trust and confidence. We then heard from Zsófia Demjén (Open University) and her work on "side effects" and how the term is used vaguely and ambiguously across social media. This ambiguity amplifies vaccine hesitancy by making potential harms seem uncertain and alarming, highlighting, again, the need for clearer communication, about what to expect from vaccinations.

Day Two: Healthcare Interactions and End-of-Life Care

Power, advocacy and healthcare interactions

Day two focused on interactions in healthcare settings. It built on themes from day one, highlighting the power dynamics at play in healthcare environments and the importance of how knowledge is shared and acted upon.

Jennifer Watermeyer (University of Cape Town), Emma Brooks (Lancaster University), and May O. Lwin (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) each brought home how power dynamics manifest and play out across the healthcare system - from point of contact through to care in practice and in community.

Their presentations reinforced for me the critical role of advocacy and the shared responsibility patients and professionals have for learning about and sharing healthcare information. As patients, we need to be health literate and confident in how we communicate with healthcare professionals. However, I recognise that many patients face significant barriers to health literacy and confident communication - whether due to educational background, language difficulties, cognitive impairments, or simply the nature of illness itself. This makes it even more crucial for health care environments and health professionals to adapt their communication approach to meet patients where they are, rather than expecting all patients to reach a certain level of health literacy. Equally, health professionals need to be person-focused and confident in their communication skills. There is a direct link between communication quality and patient outcomes - when both sides communicate well, everyone benefits.

Each speaker in this opening panel highlighted how much we still have to learn about supporting effective partnerships in care, and that much can be learnt from collaborative research. The morning also offered a wonderful opportunity to learn about the Refugee and Asylum Seekers Centre for Healthcare Professionals Education (REACHE). Established in 2003, REACHE supports refugee and asylum seeker doctors and nurses to regain their professional identity by registering their qualifications in the UK and returning to clinical work in the NHS.

Navigating difficult conversations

In the afternoon, the panel explored how healthcare professionals can better handle some of the most emotionally challenging conversations in medicine: delivering bad news, discussing assisted dying, and talking about approaching death.

Aldona Katarzyna Jankowska (Wrocław Medical University, Poland) introduced the EMPATHY Protocol, a structured communication model that helps clinicians navigate sensitive moments with patients. She emphasised the importance of human connection at a time when we see AI transforming healthcare, noting that difficult conversations call for empathy, compassion and patient empowerment.

We then heard from Nancy Preston (Lancaster University) about assisted dying and how confusion around terminology (with different terms used across countries) and reluctance amongst health professionals create barriers to open, honest conversations. Her research with healthcare professionals and bereaved families across multiple countries reveals the urgent need for clearer guidance and better communication practices.

This led us naturally to Sibylle Felber (Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland), who introduced a blended-learning framework that teaches healthcare professionals how to talk compassionately with dying patients and their carers. The training combines clinical knowledge, communication skills, self-reflection and self-care strategies. It has been shown to reduce fear and increase confidence in end-of-life conversations, particularly for less experienced clinicians.

Reflections: The Value of Slowing Down

After two full days of research and knowledge exchange, I came away pretty mentally exhausted but aware of how much researchers gain from learning from one another and building connections.

As someone usually focused on solutions or the end goal – on impact, application and tangible outcomes – attending events like this remind me of the importance of being present and taking time to learn rather than just act and "do". The symposium gave me time to slow down and listen properly. To practise staying focused on what and how things were being said. To not skim read. To see how researchers collaborate and share thoughtfully.

Beyond learning about research methods in healthcare communications, this event prompted me to reflect on my own work – it's easy to measure success by what I get done rather than how I do it, a tension (I suspect) many healthcare professionals experience too. Yet genuine improvements in healthcare communication require a shift in how we work - taking time and being intentional in learning from diverse perspectives and putting that into practice, so that everyone feels able and equipped to have honest conversations about healthcare.

I look forward to the next opportunity that brings people together from research, regulation and practice, and to taking lessons learnt into how I work in the FoHR team.

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