RE: [NIFL-HEALTH:2879] Patient interaction with health care instr uctions

From: jwandel@caregroup.harvard.edu
Date: Thu Mar 01 2001 - 12:06:36 EST


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From: jwandel@caregroup.harvard.edu
To: nifl-health@nifl.gov
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Subject: RE: [NIFL-HEALTH:2879] Patient interaction with health care instr uctions
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 12:06:36 -0500 
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We are just beginning to look at injecting interactive components into our
patient education documents. We are in the early stages of piloting a "quiz"
to be used by our transplant nurses as they prepare patients for discharge
after kidney or liver transplant. These patients have so much to learn. The
"open book" quiz is designed to help them zone in on the most important
things they need to remember. We also include some scenarios that could
occur after discharge - getting the flu, running out of immunosuppresant
medicine, etc. - and ask the patient to tell us what he/she would do if
these occur. We are hopeful that this method will not only liven up the
"need to know" information for the patient, but will also help the nurse
assess where the gaps are in advance of the discharge date.

Jane Wandel, RN
Program Coordinator
Patient Education Print Materials
The Beth Israel Deaconess Learning Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston

-----Original Message-----
From: Lendoak@aol.com [mailto:Lendoak@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2001 11:44 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [NIFL-HEALTH:2879] Patient interaction with health care
instructions


Dear friends,

We thank you for the opportunity to spend the week with you as "Guest 
Discussion Leaders". We would like to share ideas with you on building 
interaction into patient instructions.

Have you noticed the first thing a telemarketer says when you answer the 
phone? Isn't it invariably, "How are you today?" Why do they open with a 
question rather than a sales pitch? Because when you interact to respond to 
their question - they gain your attention. And to some small degree they
have 
established a relationship with you.

>From research and long experience, educators know that interaction
stimulates 
interest, memory and learning. Oral and written responses are standard 
practice in the classroom. More recently, neurologists have shown that 
interaction causes a protein change in the brain that stimulates retention 
and memory. But few health care instructions - in any mode of communication
- 
ask for substantive feedback from the patient. 

Some feedback examples: (written) "Check at least three foods that you will 
eat more of to reduce your risk of cancer." (Oral), "You're going home now, 
tell me (or show me) how you will clean your stoma...take your meds...etc."

A few years ago we analyzed 100 written health care instructions and found 
that fewer than 20 percent included interaction of any kind. More recently a

similar analysis of med instruction from a pharmaceutical company showed a 
similar percentage. For instructions on video or audio tapes, patient 
feedback is requested even less frequently.

Would you share your experience in building in feedback for patients? What 
has worked for you? Do your materials exceed the 20 percent average?

Patient feedback can bring huge gains in effectiveness. We look forward to 
your experience with feedbck, and in the following days we will share ours.

Ceci and Len Doak
Patient Learning Associates



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