Web handouts give patients access to materials
Web handouts give patients access to materials
Misplaced instructions, memory lapses don’t matter
Technology can help patient education managers save money. That’s one reason a group of Southwest Veterans Affairs (VA) health care facilities decided to pilot Health Informatics, a web-based patient education handout system.
"I envision it saving the VA money by limiting the number of brochures and pamphlets we have to print," says David Tindall, RN, BSN, nurse manager at Amarillo (TX) VA Health Care System — the actual pilot site. One pamphlet on hypertension costs his facility more than $4,000 a year to produce. The information now can be printed from the Health Informatics system, and if there is information pertinent to patients, those details can be added to the web page to supplement the information already available.
Health Informatics provides the Amarillo VA facility with a web site that patients can access by using a registration code to obtain patient education materials on-line. Staff, via the medical center’s intranet, can access the same materials.
The pilot study is designed to determine if Health Informatics meets four goals:
- to provide reliable patient education information to the veteran population;
- to offer a way to provide uniform, high-quality educational materials across all South-west VA health care facilities;
- to ensure that information is easily customized and updated;
- to ensure that information is easily accessible for patients via the Internet and staff via the intranet.
"Health Informatics is meeting those four goals. If we want to add a post test to the materials, we can do that, or if we want to supplement the health care article with information we think is pertinent, we can do that," says Tindall.
Patients access info at home
Many companies produce products that can be placed on the intranet, but Health Informatics can be set up on the web as well, allowing patients access to the same information at home, says David Przestrzelski, MS, RN, director of nursing and patient education at Southern Arizona VA Health Care System in Tucson.
"Giving patients access to information is saving money because they better know how to care for themselves and how to utilize the services that are provided," he says. For example, if patients start to take a medication, and five days later, think they may be experiencing a side effect they can go on-line and look up the information.
Once the pilot is complete, the southwest VA health care system may make Health Informatics available on a touch screen computer in the pharmacy counseling area so patients could investigate the prescribed medicines without the aid of a pharmacist. "This could move people through the counseling process with the pharmacist a lot faster," says Przestrzelski. In that way, the pharmacy could save money by cutting down the time needed for counseling by not having to add more staff.
At the pilot site, brochures and flyers distributed at clinics and throughout the health care facility alert patients to the new web site they can access at home. Also, the web address is placed on the appointment reminder letters mailed to patients along with a paragraph that describes Health Informatics.
"For the staff, we made up cards that we have taken to different clinics, and we offer classes about the site. I took the information to our patient education group so that it could pass it along," says Tindall. The education is slowly working. One month, there was 1,900 hits on the site and the next, close to 5,000.
The web site, which has information written between a fourth- and seventh-grade level and available in both Spanish or English, provides access to reliable educational materials. All information is presented without promoting a specific drug, medical procedure, or facility. However, the information is designed to supplement the education given by providers, not replace it. "The information can be used as a reminder of the things patients want to ask their provider once they get to their appointment," says Tindall.
Sources
For more information about the Health Informatics system, contact:
- David Przestrzelski, MS, RN, Director of Nursing and Patient Education, Southern Arizona VA Health Care System in Tucson, AZ. E-mail: [email protected].
- David Tindall, RN, BSN, Nurse Manager, Amarillo VA Health Care System, 6010 Amarillo Blvd. W., Amarillo, TX 79016. Telephone: (806) 355-9703, ext. 7741. E-mail: [email protected].
- Mike D. Myers, MD, President, Health Informatics Inc., 4216 Katella Ave., Los Alamitos, CA 90720. Telephone: (562) 493-1237. E-mail: [email protected].
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