What Role Does Patient Education Play In Healthcare?

By Rebecca Harris


With the ever-rising need to come up with disease prevention and management techniques, the healthcare industry has witnessed a drastic evolution. While the sector was largely structured to focus on the providers, patients now form the core of the model. This comes in the form of increased patient education that seeks to empower the public to equip them for the bigger role they now play in modern healthcare.

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.

Many healthcare facilities have advanced resources that would facilitate easy accessibility of educational materials and guidelines. Additionally, information can be customized and printed out for disbursement quite easily, thanks to modern technology. All these resources should be fully taken advantage of in ensuring that patients' needs are met. Rather than handing out stacks of reading material, the information should be reviewed with the recipient to ensure that they understand the instructions.

Because people learn in different ways, the material has to be tailored to suit the style preferred by the recipient. And this doesn't have to be complicated. All it takes is some research to determine what channel would allow a particular patient to easily absorb and utilize the content. By making use of the various teaching modalities available, the information could be delivered to a hugely diverse audience.

For educational material to garner any meaningful attention and response, it has to stimulate people's interest. In a world of instant gratification, people want to know what benefit they'd gain from virtually anything. As such, educators need to precisely determine what each particular patient values most. This generally involves building a rapport, asking questions and considering the patient's specific concerns. Feedback is also crucial in evaluating the efficiency of information.

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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