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.

An enhanced level of understanding among recipients of healthcare services ensures that the latter are well-informed about their own wellbeing. This could be due to a better grasp of their diagnosis, treatment options, side effects or ways to prevent deterioration of health. Patients are not only able to make better decisions, but there's also an enhanced level of trust between them and healthcare providers.

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.

Education empowers patients to actively manage their own conditions in order to improve their health status. Additionally, an informed person would arguably be more motivated to handle the tasks set out for them. Doctors could even set out goals for their patients to attain for this purpose. As such, educating patients results in improved performance on various levels. However, appropriate tactics have to be employed in spreading awareness for education to work effectively.

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.

It's a proven fact that utilizing different modalities to provide education reinforces the teachings. That said, information could also be tailored in such a way that intelligent adults don't adequately understand and absorb it. Educators therefore need to use an approach that makes it easy for specific patients to comprehend. With a little research, care providers can determine what suits their patients best.

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.

Families play an integral role in healthcare management. Relatives must therefore be involved in the teaching process to facilitate the utilization of educational material. And in most cases, the instructions will usually be provided to the patient's family. By including one's kin when delivering instructions relating to their condition, patient outcomes can be improved dramatically.




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