Patient Education Materials

Overview

Patient education and counseling is the process of educating individuals about a disease, its procedures, and treatments in order to make informed decisions about their health.

Patient Education materials not only educates patients about the diseases but also aims to improve health by encouraging compliance with medical treatment regimens and promoting healthy lifestyles altogether.

As per the American Journal of Medicine, patient education materials significantly improve compliance with medication education for patients across a broad range of conditions and disease severities. Lack of compliance is associated with poor clinical outcomes, increased hospitalizations, lower quality of life, and higher overall health costs.

Nowadays, patient engagement companies are teaching patient education through different media. There are numerous materials present for promoting Patient Education such as:

• Brochures or other printed material
• Youtube videos
• Group classes
• PowerPoint presentations in many seminars
• Podcasts
• Posters and charts
• 2D animations
• 3D animations

Why are Patient Education Materials Important?

A patient’s misunderstanding of a condition and its care can result in non-compliance to a doctor’s recommendations or diagnosis which causes significant and adverse affected outcomes. The more clearly a disease is understood, the more likely it is that an individual will be comfortable with their care and adhere to necessary regimens. This is where Patient education material comes in handy.

• The Impact of Patient Education Materials – Dealing with any sort of disease is not easy. The more clearly a disease is understood, the more likely it is that an individual will adhere to necessary regimens. Adequate knowledge about what can be expected during a medical procedure is critical. Hence, patient education materials about diseases increase patient engagement. Patient Engagement combines a patient’s knowledge, skills, ability, and willingness to manage his own health and care, resulting in positive patient behavior.
• Lack of Adherence – Patient education materials significantly improve compliance with medication across a broad range of conditions and disease severities but lack of compliance is associated with poor clinical outcomes, increased hospitalizations, lower quality of life, and higher overall health costs. If we consider that some patients undergo treatments at their home, learning about their conditions can give them the knowledge to undertake their own treatment with confidence.
• Beneficial to Everyone – Patient Education materials attract patients to the Health-care service provider and increase patient engagement in healthcare. Beyond the clear value of patients’ education, it also provides massive advantages for health-care service providers. Other benefits such as:

1. An increase in compliance leads to a more efficient and cost-effective healthcare delivery system
2. Patient education materials promotes patient-centered care and increases adherence to medication and treatments
3. Educating patients ensures continuity of care and reduces complications related to the illness

• Challenges faced by Healthcare Marketers – Healthcare marketers need to understand the fine line between how much information is necessary and when it becomes overloaded while contributing to Patient Education. Physicians and healthcare systems should work together to form a consensus for providing patient education materials in the most effective formats possible – so that patients understand the information, be comfortable with their care, and confidently use this knowledge to tackle their own conditions effectively.

How can patient education materials be made effective?

The Internet abounds with dubious sites providing “medical facts”.  Doctors often complain that their patients bring sheets of printouts from the internet to explain their symptoms or support their self-diagnosis of health conditions. A simple headache can be made to seem like a symptom of a brain tumor, causing most uninformed readers anxiety and sleepless nights.

This is one of the main reasons why physicians and health providers practice patient education materials more often to provide the correct facts to their patients. Explaining complex medical terminology in a simple manner will ease their mind, prevent self-treatment, and avoid complications from wrongful diagnosis.

Here are some of the ways to impart patient education effectively:

1. Use technology

Pamphlets, charts, and images only go so far to help patients. Printed information is never retained with the patient and is likely to be filed away and never looked at again. Using technology, like creating a space for informative articles on your patient portal or maybe using a health communication channel on the waiting area TV is quicker and more effective at getting the message across to your patients.

2. Get rid of the jargon

The aim of providing information to patients is to simplify complex terminology and medical jargon. Therefore, you should use simple language and visual content such as 3D Anatomy, Procedures Videos, Surgery Videos, Visual Treatment Options to explain complicated health conditions, and their implications. It helps to be objective when discussing medical procedures by explaining the benefits and risks associated with them to allow patients to make an informed decision.

3. Use social media

Social media is a great medium to post helpful and informative health tips. You can also choose to create discussion groups that could be illness-specific, gender-specific, or age-specific to categorize your audience in order to better refine the information that you distribute among groups.

4. Get feedback from patients

Feedback from patients will help you customize your patient education materials. Interest in health concerns varies so it is important to check in with your patients occasionally to ensure that your efforts aren’t in vain. Online questionnaires and feedback forms can help you get your patients’ opinions.

How is Eremedium contributing to production of Patient Education Materials?

Eremedium is India’s largest Patient Education Company at Point of Care covering more than 3,000 health care centers and with over 10,000 doctors on-board which helps in educating millions of patients with various patient engagement strategies inside Hospitals, Clinics, and Nursing Home.

We provide effective, adaptable, creative, and easy to understand patient education materials across different Digital Media platforms, which not only encourages patient education digitally but also develops a sound sense of digital patient engagement.

Our top patient engagement solutions are:

• MEDIO
• MEDCOMM
• MedXplain

1. MEDIO

            It uses OPD Waiting Area TV to increase patient health satisfaction, ease waiting time, and promote health literacy at the moment of greatest impact.

Some of the patient engagement strategies that MEDIO follows:

• Health Education – Empower patients with healthy lifestyle videos, like nutrition and exercise, condition-specific videos, and much more while they are waiting. Content is personalized to the doctor’s specialty and care setting.
• Authenticated Content – Copyrighted patient education library of over 1,000 videos in multiple languages, curated by doctors and approved by top medical associations.

2. MEDCOMM

            A 22” interactive digital signage embedded with 3D, Gesture Driven content personalized to specialty and care setting, enabling doctors to give quality consultation in less time.

Some of the notable features are:

• Patient Education – Doctors can now communicate over 1,000 conditions, procedures, and treatment options with patients in an unprecedented way.
• Content Library – Quality consultation in less time by use of copyrighted content library consisting of 3D Anatomy, Gesture Driven videos. The centralized knowledge base of the latest research, clinical tools, medical information at fingertips.
• Real-time Sharing – Doctors can share the treatment options, post-operative care with Patients and their Caregivers in real-time.

MEDXPLAIN: MedXplain is a cloud-based content subscription platform for doctors which acts as a bridge between a doctor and a patient. Medxplain increases patient satisfaction and promotes health literacy at the moment of greatest impact. Doctors can now communicate over 1,000 Conditions, Procedures, and Treatment Options with Patients in an unprecedented way. MedXplain enables Quality Consultation in less time by use of a copyrighted content library consisting of 3D Anatomy, Gesture driven patient information Animations, and Infographics. The content platform can be opened easily on a mobile, tablet, laptop, or desktop.

The platform comes with full-blown customization and personalization options with exciting features such as real-time sharing, personal content upload, bookmarks, etc.

For more information: https://medxplain.eremedium.in/