(Re)humanizing clinical documentation for disabled children: a cascade of potential outcomes of critically reflective practice

Supporting disabled children at school requires collaboration between health professionals, educators, and families. As a primary mode of communication, clinical letters support or challenge collaboration. Critically reflective practice prompts health professionals to reimagine how clinical letters are written and used. This critical qualitative study examines the impacts of a critically reflective approach to letter writing from the perspectives of parents and educators. Nine parents and eight educators in Ontario, Canada participated in semi-structured elicitation interviews. Our findings reveal a cascade of potential humanistic, communication, collaboration, and advocacy outcomes. Our study highlights the role of critically reflective practice in supporting a humanistic approach to clinical documentation and challenges the prevailing belief that a deficit-oriented approach is the most effective way to advocate. Achieving the outcomes identified in our study relies on fundamental shifts in how health professionals conceptualize documentation, and must be paired with broader systems change.