Your Primer on Patient Education: Examples and More
It’s believed that in the United States alone, upward of 129 million people have a major chronic disease, including hypertension, obesity, diabetes, cancer, or heart disease. These are not easy diagnoses to receive, underscoring the importance of patient education.
Through early, proactive education, you can alleviate fears and concerns a patient has about their diagnosis and/or disease management and help them achieve a higher quality of life.
This guide will help you confidently proceed with patient teaching in a compassionate, effective way. You’ll discover tips and examples to help you improve patient relationships and health.
Understanding Patient Education
Whether you’re a doctor, dentist, dermatologist, or mental health professional, a patient relies on you for their care. That care goes beyond checkups and medication management; it also includes patient education.
What does it mean to teach patients?
This educational model is geared toward helping patients wholly understand their disease or medical condition and what their options are. By the time they’re through, they’ll be fully aware of what triggers their symptoms, how to manage their discomfort or pain, and what else is required to elevate their day-to-day life.
Through patient training, you can prove that even a difficult diagnosis is not a death sentence for a patient. They can carve out a meaningful life despite their condition with your care and attention.
Physicians and their assistants typically lead patient education plans, crafting a customized curriculum according to the patient’s diagnosis and unique needs. That said, the educational components can also be applied to broader patient subsets diagnosed with the same condition.
Why Is Patient Education Important?
Patient education, if prepared and executed correctly, provides huge benefits. Take a look.
1. Increased Chance of Patient Using Treatments
Some patients are naturally dubious about medicine and doctor treatments. They might follow up every comment you make during an appointment with a pointed “But why?” Their vested interest in their health, although admirable, can create a difficult working situation.
The patient’s stubbornness and curiosity might make them unwilling to try certain treatments or stick to a treatment regimen, even if it could make them feel better.
Once you add patient education to the mix and provide more information on why you want the patient to take a specific medication, they’ll usually be more than willing to do so. By adhering to their care routine, the patient can experience better health outcomes.
2. Less Risk of Readmission
This one small choice—for a patient to follow their treatment plan—creates a positive ripple effect. By improving their health, the patient lowers their chances of having to be readmitted back to serious and prolonged care.
Sure, they’ll still have their regular checkups, but they won’t take up a valuable bed in your hospital, allowing patients who truly need care to get it.
3. Reduced Healthcare Costs
And not only that, but when you don’t have to continually deal with a readmitted patient, you can control healthcare costs more effectively. You’ll have the bed space you need to accommodate customers who require more serious treatment.
However, in those periods where you don’t have high capacity, you can cut back on yours without turning away your patients or reducing their quality of treatment.
4. Tailored for Everyone
It’s no secret that some populations receive higher levels of medical care than others. The people who are lacking are usually in lower-income neighborhoods, which further impedes them from receiving quality care.
The freedom to tailor a patient education plan to any subset of your patients allows everyone to receive high-level care no matter who they are. Further, the customization potential means you can modify the care plan so that it works for them.
5. Less Risk of Malpractice
Patient education is about more than explaining what their disease or medical condition is. You should help them understand what they’ll experience and when, how to manage symptoms, and what their outlook is.
In aiding your patients and keeping their expectations realistic, you’ll not only map out a path for their health but also slash your risk of being sued for malpractice. Patients who feel like they were left in the dark or intentionally misled are the most likely to sue, after all.
6. Higher Patient Satisfaction
Teaching patients also has the advantage of improving their satisfaction with your service, even if they receive a difficult or painful diagnosis. Crafting a customized care plan for them and providing educational information on their condition shows how much you care about the patient’s health and outcome.
It also proves that you’re willing to go above and beyond for your patients, which they won’t forget, especially in a time of need like right after a disease diagnosis.
7. More Referrals
Since more of your patients will be so satisfied with their service, expect a higher referral rate. When a patient’s friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues ask who they see for their care, they’ll happily mention your name and how much you’ve done to assure they’re in good hands.
Referrals are valuable for any business. These leads are more informed and readier to convert, so they enter your sales funnel warmer. If those referrals get even more referrals, you’ll have a consistent stream of warm leads in your funnel.
8. Better Quality of Life
Showing your patients how they can maximize their quality of life, such as by taking their medication and making lifestyle changes, helps them enjoy their days to the fullest. No one wants to be diagnosed with a painful, chronic condition or disease, but if it has to happen, at least you can help your patients find something to smile about.
9. More Patient Self-Advocacy
When patients feel like they understand their disease in full, they can then make better health decisions for themselves. They’re more willing to compare the pros and cons of treatments before making a choice, and they’re comfortable with expressing any worries or concerns they have with any part of their treatment.
If they see other medical care professionals outside of your services, they’ll be as willing to advocate for themselves with them as they are with you.
Patient Education Examples to Try
There are many different patient education examples or types to explore. As you read through this section and compare your options, consider which methods are most readily available to you, which would be the most cost-effective, and which would drive the most patient outcomes.
1. Hands-On Training and Demonstrations
In some instances, incorporating hands-on elements can help patients understand their medical condition, the symptoms it causes, and the available treatments and why they’re effective.
Hands-on demonstrations and training usually require supplies, such as dummies or anatomical models so you can show precisely what happens to the human body and where without the need for another live person to assist you.
About 65 percent of people learn best visually, making hands-on exercises a valuable type of patient education to consider.
2. Learning Management System
A broader learning management system for your healthcare practice can help if your patient sees several providers within the practice. An LMS can include many digital components to keep your patients informed and educated,
For example, you can build a mobile app within the LMS for tracking upcoming appointments, medication refill dates, and other pertinent medical care on the go. If you create quizzes or surveys for patients, you can also upload them to your LMS.
Online communities are another useful feature within an LMS that should resonate with many of your patients. Connecting patients with others going through their issues can reduce their isolation and help them strengthen their sense of self-advocacy.
Most LMS tools are also compatible with appointment schedulers as well, allowing patients to book and keep their appointments on one convenient platform. That can reduce the risk of no-shows.
3. Health Fairs
If you’ve noticed that a slew of people has received the same diagnosis lately, it might make sense to bring your patient education to a broader audience. Attending health fairs is one way you can do that.
You can set up a booth dedicated to a specific disease or medical condition. Bring your anatomical models and dummy dolls, as you’ll need them. You should provide live demonstrations throughout the day to help those who want to learn more gain the information they seek.
You might also hand out pamphlets and business cards to help those who want to take control of their health take that all-important first step.
4. Group Sessions
Another option to explore that adds somewhat more privacy but still maintains a group dynamic is group education sessions. You’d assign patients to sessions according to common traits, whether that’s diagnosis, symptoms, medications, or other factors.
Group sessions allow you to educate larger swaths of your patients all at once. You should still tailor the information to each group, so they feel like they’re getting the most out of their patient education experience.
5. One-on-One Education
If you want to offer entirely personalized education and attention for each patient, then one-on-one education is the best option. You can learn about your patient’s needs, pain levels, and quality of life, then build an education plan designed to assist them.
This customization comes at a price, in that you’ll have to spend a lot of time on each patient’s plan. However, you can reap most of the benefits from the section above, making one-on-one education sessions worthwhile.
6. Digital and Printed Materials
Printed and digital materials are an excellent way to augment any of the patient education examples you’ve seen in this section. From pamphlets to PDFs, providing concise information about medication management, lifestyle changes, and symptom management will be helpful to your patients.
Do’s and Don’ts of Patient Teaching
With those examples of patient education behind us, let’s take some time to underscore the importance of handling patient teaching properly and sensitively with these tips.
DO Make It Interactive
This isn’t grade school. Most of your patients want to feel like you’re talking to them, not at them. Incorporating interactive elements allows your patients to feel more involved in their plan and like they have an active part. They’ll appreciate more control over their care.
DON’T Make Your Education Plan Static
Even if you’ve worked with a patient for a long time, that doesn’t mean their care needs will remain the same for the tenure of their treatment. Their condition could unfortunately get worse, or—on the flip side—perhaps it gets better.
In either of those instances, you must be ready to change your patient education plan. Don’t do this on a dime, but after several appointments with your patient in which you determine a change is needed.
Also, at this stage, keep it collaborative. Propose a plan to your patient rather than tell them what the plan is upfront. Allow them to share their input and make any prescribed changes.
Of course, you have to act in the patient’s best interest, even if that isn’t always easy. For instance, if they want to reduce their medication dosage or frequency but you don’t think they’re in good enough health to do so, you shouldn’t agree to those changes.
DO Ask for Feedback and Implement Changes
After enough patient teaching, your patients should have plenty to say about the quality of their instruction thus far and the education portal you’ve introduced. You should gladly welcome the opportunity for patients to let you know how helpful they’ve found your education services.
Feedback will be both positive and negative. You can’t win over everybody, but you should pay attention to recurring comments. These are the areas you need to change or improve upon to make your patient education even better.
DON’T Ignore Negative Feedback
No one likes receiving negative feedback, but, as we said, it’s going to happen. You can’t discard it or sweep it under the rug. Instead, take note of the points that people mention, as those are areas they want to see changed.
Taking the time to improve your patient education program means your existing and future patients all benefit.
DO Plan Patient Education Around How an Employee Learns Best
The right patient education option will vary according to your patient’s preferences. Younger, tech-savvy customers will prefer an online portal, whereas your older patients might do best with physical materials versus digital materials.
DON’T End the Program Without Providing Tools for Your Patients
Once you’ve decided that your patient no longer needs your educational services, don’t just cut them loose without a care. Ensure they have ongoing resources and tools to stay knowledgeable, continue taking their medication (as needed), control their symptoms, and advocate for themselves long-term.
Your patients will find it a lot easier to enter the next stage of their life with your ongoing support, even if you aren’t as directly involved.
FAQs
1. What are the steps of patient education?
There are four steps to adhere to when launching a patient education program. The first is assessing the need for patient teaching, including what kind of information your patients are interested in.
Next, you can enter the planning stage, where you actively put together the parts of your education program. The third stage is implementation, where you put the plan into motion. The last stage is assessing the quality of education. Feedback is very important here in helping you modify and improve your patient education offerings.
2. Who benefits from patient education?
Almost anyone who’s been recently diagnosed with a medical condition or disease, especially those with chronic pain, are eligible for patient education. Patients dealing with a slew of health conditions who want more control should also look into education options.
3. What should patient education include?
An effective patient education program requires:
- Further information on a patient’s disease or medical condition
- What is their prognosis is
- What kinds of symptoms they’ll experience
- How to lessen their pain, including with medical treatments and lifestyle adjustments
- What their treatment options are
- How to improve their quality of life long-term
Conclusion
A patient education framework can help you put your patients’ worried minds at ease. You can assist them in understanding more about their condition, including how to manage it. Better yet, you can help them advocate for better health from you and other providers.
With many patient education examples to explore, try several to see what works for your patients.
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