ACQ Vol 12 No 3 2010

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ACQ Volume 12, Number 2 2010 105
Accessible healthcare
Welcome to the final edition of ACQuiring Knowledge
in Speech, Language and Hearing for 2010. The articles in this issue
highlight the important, but perhaps neglected topic of the accessibility of
healthcare for people with communication impairment. We thank Dr
Robyn O’Halloran for soliciting a number of excellent articles for this issue
and for suggesting the topic to us.
O’Halloran introduces the issue with an overview of the need for
speech pathologists to advocate for accessible healthcare environments
in their workplaces. Following are a number of peer-reviewed and “Clinical
Insights” papers on a range of related topics. These papers cover both
the findings from the literature in accessible healthcare as well as the
clinical implications of those findings. Hemsley, Balandin, and Togher
review the literature investigating communicative environments in hospital
for adults with developmental disability and Towers discusses improving
hospital access for people with hearing impairment. Highlighting practical
ways to improve the accessibility of healthcare services, McKinley,
Poole, and White report on the outcomes of several quality improvement
projects focused on improving access in their hospital for people with
communication impairment. In a similar vein, Anderson describes the
formation and work of the “Communicative Access Care Improvement
Group” at Austin Hospital.
Many of our regular columns such as “Top 10 resources”, “What’s
the evidence?” and “Around the journals” also focus on the topic of
accessible healthcare. In other articles in this issue, Ferdinando and
Stone discuss the challenges of implementing stuttering therapy within a
school setting and Osborne describes the process of conducting a parent
satisfaction survey in a private clinic. Our fascinating Asia Pacific column
in this issue describes speech pathology practice in Japan.
On a personal note, this will be our last issue as co-editors. While Marleen
is continuing in her role as co-editor, Nicole has decided to finish her
editorship with this issue. We have very much enjoyed working together
on ACQ for the last two years and hope that it has provided evidence
based, and clinically useful articles that have inspired our readers to reflect
on their practice and perhaps even to publish in ACQ! We come to our
last issue with some sadness but are excited to welcome Kerry Ttofari
Eecen as the new co-editor of ACQ for 2011–2012.
From the editors
Nicole Watts Pappas and Marleen Westerveld
105 From the editors
106 Communication accessibility in healthcare settings
– Robyn O’Halloran
108 Creating a communicative environment in hospital
for adults with developmental disability and complex
communication needs – Bronwyn Hemsley, Susan
Balandin, and Leanne Togher
112 Improving communication access across Austin
Health – Kathryn McKinley, Shauna Poole, and
Melanie White
116 Creating communicative access in Barwon Health:
Dwelling in possibility – Natalie Anderson
120 Clinical insights: Reflections on improving hospital
access for people who are Deaf or have a hearing
impairment – Evelyn Towers
123 What’s the evidence? Communicatively accessible
healthcare environments – Robyn O’Halloran and
Tanya Rose
127 Communicatively accessible healthcare
environments: Ethics and informed consent –
Deborah Hersh and Melanie Breese talk to Suze Leitão
129 Research Update: Webcam Lidcombe Program
treatment – Kylie Farnsworth
131 Webwords 38: Universal design – Caroline Bowen
134 Quality assurance: A private practice perspective
– Katherine Osborne
140 Clinical insights: Implementing effective stuttering
therapy within a school – Malathi Ferdinando
and Luana Stone
144 Speech language hearing services in Japan –
Jun Katsuki-Nakamura and Junichi Fukaura
148 Our top 10 resources for creating communicatively
accessible healthcare settings – Kathryn McKinley,
Shauna Poole, and Melanie White
150 Around the journals
153 Resources reviews
Contents
Nicole Watts Pappas (left) and Marleen Westerveld