Saturday, September 24, 2016

What Role Does Patient Education Play In Healthcare?

By Rebecca Harris


The healthcare industry has over the years transformed from being one that was focused on the health provider to a patient-centric model. The evolution has come as the industry discovered the massive benefits of empowering the public to better manage and prevent disease. Still, patient education could potentially improve healthcare in numerous other ways all around the world.

To better understand their health situations, patients need more awareness on crucial elements of healthcare. Such include the diagnosis of illnesses, viable treatment approaches and maintaining control over the whole situation. An increased understanding places patients in a better position to make prudent decisions regarding their status. Doctors also benefit from the ability to reduce their patient's anxiety, which yields a larger degree of openness.

Although certain elements of care are best handled by professionals, patients could shoulder some of the responsibility by managing other aspects. This reduces the number of unnecessary appointments, visits and admissions, thus saving time and money for both parties. As such, educating patients facilitates the adoption of a more proactive approach to healthcare. This has a positive effect on healthcare entities as a whole.

Enlightened patients would be more motivated to strive towards achieving certain goals to improve their wellbeing. Education would thus help improve efficiency in the entire industry. This applies for all points of the care spectrum, from new moms learning to handle newborn babies and adults living with chronic illnesses as well. To enhance the efficacy of disseminated information, there are a few guidelines that could facilitate delivery and support.

In recent years, technological advancements have facilitated easy access to information. Most healthcare institutions currently possess various tools through which information could be conveyed to patients. Rather than attempt to reinvent the wheel, providers should instead utilize what they currently have. Generally, educational resources only need to be polished and delivered to the audience in an efficient manner. This would involve steps to review the content to make it user-friendly for the average person.

People have different learning styles. Similarly, various techniques could be used to provide information. As such, educational content should be offered on different modalities to reinforce teaching. This way, recipients will be able to absorb and utilize whatever information they're offered. While this would involve some research to determine what suits particular patients best, the approach would yield better comprehension of information.

The modern public demands instant gratification. It's thus vital that information possesses the capability to stimulate the audience's interest. For the patients to understand how they could benefit, the provider has to recognize what matters most to each particular person. While some people may want to find out more details about the subject, others may simply want a checklist of facts. Additionally, feedback must be obtained to determine whether the information was fully understood.

To boost the patient's outcomes, family members need to be actively involved in the teaching process. Although this could prove challenging, it certainly makes information more relevant to the patients. And because family members are usually involved in most treatment processes, it makes sense to include them here.




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