Annegret F. Hannawa
Annegret Hannawa, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Health Communication at the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the University of Lugano (Università della Svizzera italiana). Prior to joining USI, she served as Assistant Professor of Health Communication and Empirical Research Methods at Wake Forest University, North Carolina. Professor Hannawa’s scientific expertise lies in the domains of interpersonal communication and advanced quantitative methodology. Her research agenda focuses on transdisciplinary approaches to optimizing health care delivery, and positive health outcomes that can be achieved through competent interpersonal interaction. Her most recent grant (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation) conceptualizes and operationalizes Medical Error Disclosure Competence (MEDC) as an empirical construct. Furthermore, she has developed a Tool for Retrospective Analysis of Critical Events (TRACE) in collaboration with Debra Roter, which operationalizes a theoretically framed, interdisciplinary conceptualization of medical error. Her research also examines physicians’ verbal and nonverbal disclosure styles of medical errors to patients that facilitate positive and negative physiological, psychological, relational, organizational, and systemic health outcomes. Prof. Hannawa founded and now presides the International Society for Communication Science and Medicine (ISCOME), which actively pursues innovative interdisciplinary research collaborations to improve patient safety.