Communication is an essential component of effective health care. Ideally, information to ensure continuous safe treatment and to prevent decisions or actions that can be harmful is transmitted among all who are involved in a patient's care, including the patient.

In the course of a normal day, a nurse processes a great volume of information about a patient. The nurse must decide which information calls for further action, which should be recorded in the patient's record, which should be reported to others involved in the patient's care, and which should be told to the patient or his family. Making such decisions about communication can present serious problems. A recent California case, Sanchez v. Bay General Hospital, illustrates what can happen when nurses fail to recognize the significance of certain patient information and therefore fail to communicate it or react to it properly.