Patient Education and Educational Technologies - Essay Example

Best Practices In the hospital setting, there are various ways of employing educational technologies for patient, visitor, nurse, doctor or administrator information. These sectors in the hospitals are considered as learners since learning is a continuous process as such, the hospital should strive to provide a very conducive learning environment. A literal example of learning in the hospital setting is the e-hospital project (“E-hospital, 2009) where they strive to enable long-term patients with the education they need and even a university education. However, in this paper, the situation in the hospital where I am working doesn’t have this context of learning. Rather, learning in the hospital I work in includes the needed information on health, medical procedures, diagnostics and the like. Educational materials in this setting can be synonymous to informational materials since these are used to inform and educate the patients, doctors, and nurses alike. Educational technologies can be seen in several sectors in terms of how these are used. These sectors that I am referring to are the patients and the health care providers that include the doctors, nurses, dieticians, therapists etc. Patient education comes in various ways and in various objectives. Patients are educated on the ways to alleviate their health conditions, preventive care, and rehabilitation (Patient education, 2006). They are given instructions on how to take their medications, perform exercises and prepare the prescribed meals and the like. These may be done with the use of simple “to do” lists or with more complex set of materials that includes pictures, illustrations, and flow charts. For instructions on medications for example, depending on the complexity and number of medicines that the patient needs to take, educational materials can be as simple as chart for the schedule of intake of the medicines and the dosage. For rehabilitation and therapy education, illustrations that show how a particular exercise is done are used. These illustrations may be in the form of a printed material or a video presentation or even a live performance by the therapist or the physician. Back exercises, for example, can be easily illustrated by the physician or therapist providing the instructions. To serve as a reminder, handouts with the illustrations of the back exercises will be given to the patient. Food guides, recipes, and measurement guides are given to patients with special diet requirements and these are in the form of printed materials, diary or calendar containing the recipes or suggested recipes with specific instructions on measurement and preparation of these. It can be seen that patient education materials are on the traditional side in the sense that these are either printed or shown “live” through the illustration of the one giving the instruction or the one providing the education. These are taken one step forward by making these materials available online. However, it doesn’t mean that making these online renders these as high technology materials because these are the same materials only that they are online. Another situation where patient education happens is when the physicians discuss the health conditions, medical procedures, diagnosis and/or prognosis to the patients. For example, an ob-gyn patient who complained of prolonged menses needs to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound for diagnosis, will need explanation from the doctor regarding the procedure. After this, the doctor will again explain to the patient the diagnosis and even the results of the ultrasound. In here, the doctor may use a model of the reproductive system as an educational material to further explain the condition or the process. The ultrasound image may also be used aided by another picture or illustration as visual materials to explain what was seen. Similar situations can be seen with patients undergoing complex surgical procedures like removal of cancer cells or angioplasty and the like. The procedures and options are explained to them so that they will be guided accordingly and base their decisions to go through the procedure or not. Again, educational technologies used in these cases are x-ray results, ultrasound results, images from scans and the like. All these are made to make the understanding of the concepts and procedures easier for the patients, considering that they have lesser knowledge of the human body and lesser comprehension of health conditions. Education for patients can also occur when they try to learn the ins and outs of the hospital. As such, labels of each office are placed prominently and maps of each floor are carefully placed in the lobbies of each level with proper markers for restrooms, elevators, stairs, fire exits and other important places in the hospital. Lists of do’s and don’ts are also printed and placed in strategic locations to warn and inform the patients and visitors alike. Reminders for safety measures like wearing of protective gears where appropriate for patients visitors and hospital staff alike are also placed prominently. One thing that could possibly be pursued in this situation on patient and visitor information/education on the hospital is a virtual tour or virtual orientation of the hospital which is interactive and would also serve as an alternate to the concierge or information desk. Physicians, nurses and other health care providers are continuously learning and this is the reason why they are also making use of educational technologies aside from the usual informational materials. Specialists go to conferences periodically and they need to relay what they have learned from these conferences in their respective clinics or hospitals. In this case, they may reproduce the materials that they received and share these with their colleagues. They also make use of presentation technologies when they conduct a mini-conference among themselves. The physicians in the hospital are already knowledgeable of presentation technologies. However, they are more on using the presentation technologies as their idiot cards instead of as an educational material. This can be one possible project to pursue – to educate them on the design of presentation materials such that it will aid in the learning of those who attend the mini-conference instead of repeating what they are discussing in the slides and what is also printed in the handouts. Hospitals are also considered business entities so there are also marketing and financial concerns. Dissemination of information like annual reports, progress reports, and statistics are illustrated using charts and graphs and presented during board meetings or staff meetings. Educational or informational materials here are also on the traditional side and may be translated to a more contemporary side by using presentation technologies to show these to those concerned. As a whole, the hospital is making use of educational technologies for patient education and information. These are generally the traditional print and text materials but this does not diminish their capacity since these are still able to elicit comprehension from the learners (patients, physicians etc). “e-hospital: An e-learning project” (2009). Retrieved August 23, 2009 from http://www.guni-rmies.net/observatory/bp.php?id=189 “Patient education” (2006). Encyclopedia of Allied Health and Nursing. Ed. Kristine Krapp. Gale Cengage. Retrieved. 23 August 2009 from http://www.enotes.com/nursing-encyclopedia/patient-education Read More