Which of the following topics is frequently covered during patient education?

Preventing re-hospitalization is a huge responsibility, especially in consideration of costly penalties that are levied for early readmissions. To accomplish this, nurses need to constantly improve patient teaching and education prior to discharge. Some of the things nurses can do to advance patient education include:

• Delegate more responsibilities to support staff and be more focused on patient education.
• Begin educating patients with every encounter from admission.
• Find out what the patient already knows. Correct any misinformation.
• Feed patients information in layman’s terms. Utilize visual aids as often as possible.
• Question their understanding of the care, and plan for the next lesson.
• Use return demonstration when administering care. Involve the patient from the very first treatment.
• Ask the patient to tell you how they would explain (step-by-step) their disease or treatment to their loved one.
• Make sure the patient understands the medications as you administer them. Make sure they understand how and when to refill medications.
• Provide patients with information about signs and symptoms of their condition that will require immediate attention.

Five strategies for patient education success

Teaching patients is an important aspect of nursing care. Whether teaching a new mom how to bathe a newborn baby or instructing an adult who is living with a chronic heart disease, a successful outcome depends on the quality of the nurse’s instruction and support. Consider these five strategies.

1. Take advantage of educational technology

Technology has made patient education materials more accessible. Educational resources can be customized and printed out for patients with the touch of a button. Make sure the patient’s individualized needs are addressed. Don't simply hand the patient a stack of papers to read, review them with patients to ensure they understand the instructions and answer questions that arise. Some resources are available in several languages.

2. Determine the patient’s learning style

Similar information may be provided by a range of techniques. In fact, providing education using different modalities reinforces teaching. Patients have different learning styles so ask if your patient learns best by watching a DVD or by reading. A hands on approach where the patient gets to perform a procedure with your guidance is often the best method.

3. Stimulate the patient’s interest

It's essential that patients understand why this is important. Establish rapport, ask and answer questions, and consider specific patient concerns. Some patients may want detailed information about every aspect of their health condition while others may want just the facts, and do better with a simple checklist.

4. Consider the patient’s limitations and strengths

Does the patient have physical, mental, or emotional impairments that impact the ability to learn? Some patients may need large print materials and if the patient is hearing impaired, use visual materials and hands on methods instead of simply providing verbal instruction. Always have patients explain what you taught them. Often people will nod “yes” or say that they comprehend what is taught even if they have not really heard or understood. Consider factors such as fatigue and the shock of learning a critical diagnosis when educating patients.

5. Include family members in health care management

Involving family members in patient teaching improves the chances that your instructions will be followed. In many cases, you will be providing most of the instruction to family members. Families play a critical role in health care management.

Teaching patients and their families can be one of the most challenging, yet also rewarding elements of providing nursing care. First-rate instruction improves patient outcomes dramatically.

The value of patient education resources

For further resources that will strength your organization’s patient-teaching, let Lippincott Advisor help. Our best-in-class, evidence-based decision support software for institutions includes over 16,000 customizable patient teaching handouts and content entries.

From the Division of Cardiology, Methodist Hospital, Dallas, Texas (Paterick); Division of Cardiology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Jacksonville, Florida (Patel); Division of Cardiology, Aurora Medical Group, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Tajik); Division of Cardiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota (Chandrasekaran).

Corresponding author: Nachiket Patel, MD, Division of Cardiology, University of Florida College of Medicine, 655 W. 8th Street, Jacksonville, FL 32209 (e-mail: moc.liamg@letapjtekihcan).

Copyright © 2017, Baylor University Medical Center

“Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.”

—Norman Cousins, Anatomy of an Illness

To improve health care outcomes, physicians must spend more time with patients. The teaching physician's interaction with the patient must be enthusiastic, motivated, and responsive to the individual patient's needs. For individual members of our society to realize the benefits of physician health education, there is a need for a robust, hearty engagement between patients and physicians.

Interventions to improve self-care have led to documented improvements in self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is defined as one's belief in one's ability to succeed in specific situations, or accomplish certain tasks. One's sense of self-efficacy plays a major role in how one approaches goals, tasks, and challenges regarding one's health. Clinical benefits have been seen in trials of lifestyle intervention within a wide range of conditions such as diabetes, coronary heart disease, heart failure, and rheumatoid arthritis (1).

In the context of escalating health care costs and shocking future cost projections, the potential for improved health outcomes through patient education and self-management programs is immense. In the early 1990s, it was estimated that 50% of the annual mortality toll in the US was premature. Tobacco use, poor diet, a lack of physical exercise, alcohol consumption, exposure to microbial agents, use of firearms, risky sexual behavior, motor vehicle accidents, and illicit drug use were the culprits causing premature death. Approximately 80% of premature deaths were due to tobacco use, dietary patterns, and a low physical activity level (1). Clearly, these are all behaviors we could modify to reverse the trends. For those individuals who do not smoke, eat healthy food, and participate in regular exercise programs, the hazard ratio for diabetes, myocardial infarction, stroke or cancer was 0.22 (2).

There is a belief in the medical community that physical activity and diet can reduce the risk of developing coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes, and the metabolic syndrome. A comprehensive systematic review reinforced this notion by revealing that there is irrefutable, convincing evidence for the benefit of exercise in improving clinical outcomes in metabolic disorders, coronary heart disease, and heart failure (3).

Physicians must promote patient education and engagement through improvement in patients' health literacy. Health literacy is defined as the capacity to seek, understand, and act on health information (4). The presumption has been that low health literacy means that physician communication is poorly understood, leading to incomplete self-health management and responsibility and incomplete health care utilization (5). It is the responsibility of physicians to proactively enable patients to have more accessible interactions and situations that promote health and well-being. Health literacy is the primary responsibility of physicians, given that it is physicians who determine the parameters of the health interaction, including physical setting, available time, communication style, content, modes of information provided, and concepts of sound health care decision crafting and acquiescence. There are communication methodologies and behaviors that physicians can implement to ameliorate the potential risks associated with limited patient health literacy, including avoiding medical jargon, engaging in patient questions, explaining unfamiliar forms, and using “teach back” as a method to ensure understanding (6).

Critical to any educational process is time. The development of patient health literacy is crucial to our proven health prevention measures of exercise and diet. Patients must have a deep understanding of the impact healthy interventions can have on their present and long-term health. Physicians will need to spend time and energy educating patients to see behavioral change that results in improved health outcomes and reduced morbidity and mortality due to preventable chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and coronary and cerebrovascular disease. As physicians, we will know when we have reached the threshold of being an excellent teacher by observing responsible patients.

The partnership between a physician and patient requires dual responsibility. Physicians have a duty to inform patients how to achieve health and wellness, and patients have a responsibility to act on the information provided in their best health interest. Medical informed consent is essential to the physician's ability to diagnose and treat patients, as well as the patient's right to accept or reject clinical evaluation, treatment, or both.

Medical informed consent should be an exchange of ideas that buttresses the patient-physician relationship. The consent process should be the foundation of the fiduciary relationship between a patient and a physician. Physicians must recognize that informed medical choice is an educational process and has the potential to affect the patient-physician alliance to their mutual benefit. Physicians must give patients equality in the covenant by educating them to make informed choices. Patients must use the educational process to make rational health choices.

When physicians and patients take medical informed consent seriously, the patient-physician relationship becomes a true partnership with shared decision-making authority and responsibility for outcomes. Physicians need to understand informed medical consent from an ethical foundation, as codified by statutory law in many states, and from a generalized common-law perspective requiring medical practice consistent with the standard of care. It is fundamental to the patient-physician relationship that each partner understands and accepts the degree of autonomy the patient desires in the decision-making process (7).

What is the correct order in the patient education process?

Which of the following is a goal of patient education?

What is the importance of patient education?

What is the primary reason the ma would want to provide patient education?