As a healthcare professional educating your clients is one of your roles. A well-educated patient is likely to adhere to the treatment and manage their condition better. Some of the media that can be used in this exercise include audio-visual documentaries, public lectures in the reception areas and written materials. Patient education handouts have been shown to be convenient for both the client and the professional. We will look at how you can make your own.
Before embarking on the project, you need to conduct research that will be aimed at helping you understand your audience better. Developing questionnaires will help you gather important information such as age, medical conditions they are being treated for, social status and so on. This will help you segment the larger group into smaller more homogeneous units. You may also use your prior experience to develop literature that addresses the frequently asked questions.
The next thing is to create the text that will go onto the handout. This is, without a doubt, the most important part of this entire project as it carries the message you want conveyed. Choose your words carefully and create short concise sentences that are devoid of convoluted explanations. Different formats may be taken in presenting the text but the question and answer approach appears to have the greatest impact.
You may either use a friendly or professional tone depending on the composition of your audience. At times, you have to deal with controversial topics. The best thing to do in such situations is to provide the reader with more than one view of the topic. List the benefits and downsides of each of them and let the reader make their own independent decision.
Always remember that handouts are about the patient-not you. The recommendation is that at least 80% of the content be dedicated to information related to the disease or medical condition. You can use the remaining 20% to tell the clients about what your facility can do to intervene in the progression of the said illness. As you will come to realize, if useful information is provided freely, you will retain most of your clients and even get more in referrals.
The materials that are chosen should ideally be durable so that the clients can remain with them for a long time. It will allow them to make references from time to time. Incorporate brilliant ideas that will make the handout more useful. Consider having a calendar on one side or design it into a bookmark. This will ensure that the clients will retain it even after they have read through.
Using durable materials ensures that are durable. Your clients can have the handout with them for a long time and can make references every so often. Such may be needed for persons that are on treatment for recurrent or chronic illnesses. More creative designs can also be adopted. This includes, for instance, turning one of the pages into a calendar or designing the entire document as a bookmark.
If you want patients to be compliant to their treatment then you need to educate them on the importance of this. Let them learn about the causes, the risk factors, the management of their condition and what role they are to play. Using handouts is one of the most effective ways of doing this. It is also fairly economical.
Before embarking on the project, you need to conduct research that will be aimed at helping you understand your audience better. Developing questionnaires will help you gather important information such as age, medical conditions they are being treated for, social status and so on. This will help you segment the larger group into smaller more homogeneous units. You may also use your prior experience to develop literature that addresses the frequently asked questions.
The next thing is to create the text that will go onto the handout. This is, without a doubt, the most important part of this entire project as it carries the message you want conveyed. Choose your words carefully and create short concise sentences that are devoid of convoluted explanations. Different formats may be taken in presenting the text but the question and answer approach appears to have the greatest impact.
You may either use a friendly or professional tone depending on the composition of your audience. At times, you have to deal with controversial topics. The best thing to do in such situations is to provide the reader with more than one view of the topic. List the benefits and downsides of each of them and let the reader make their own independent decision.
Always remember that handouts are about the patient-not you. The recommendation is that at least 80% of the content be dedicated to information related to the disease or medical condition. You can use the remaining 20% to tell the clients about what your facility can do to intervene in the progression of the said illness. As you will come to realize, if useful information is provided freely, you will retain most of your clients and even get more in referrals.
The materials that are chosen should ideally be durable so that the clients can remain with them for a long time. It will allow them to make references from time to time. Incorporate brilliant ideas that will make the handout more useful. Consider having a calendar on one side or design it into a bookmark. This will ensure that the clients will retain it even after they have read through.
Using durable materials ensures that are durable. Your clients can have the handout with them for a long time and can make references every so often. Such may be needed for persons that are on treatment for recurrent or chronic illnesses. More creative designs can also be adopted. This includes, for instance, turning one of the pages into a calendar or designing the entire document as a bookmark.
If you want patients to be compliant to their treatment then you need to educate them on the importance of this. Let them learn about the causes, the risk factors, the management of their condition and what role they are to play. Using handouts is one of the most effective ways of doing this. It is also fairly economical.
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If you would like to provide patient education handouts to your patients or customers, come to Vivacare. Let us show you how to create your own personalized health library when you visit us online at http://www.vivacare.com today.