welcome to the very important topic
of patient education patient education
is so
important in the hospital setting or in
the patient care setting
because this can help increase
compliance with treatments
and help those patients make a better
treatment decision for their own care
so let's talk about some of the
professional standards for client
education
now these are set by joint commission
and they're also supported by your
particular
state nurse practice act and this client
education is usually fulfilled
by different members of the health care
team
now let's even talk about why is even
patient education
such a big deal well it's extremely
important about ensuring informed
decision making
and what i mean by this is if a
patient's going to have a big surgery
or an invasive procedure they need
patient education
about the expected procedure and the
possible risks and the benefits
it also helps to engage in their own
care and again like we've mentioned
before
it definitely helps increase treatment
compliance
because as you can imagine if a nurse
just gave you a lot of pills
or a procedure to do or some sort of
action and you have no idea why
well you may not be as compliant as
about making sure you
stick with that treatment and of course
patient education plays a key role
in reducing injury such as falls and
increases the patient satisfaction
a lot of that has to do with patient
education and just good communication
now one key thing to think about as a
nurse is patient education is so very
important
of promoting excellence by supporting
certain programs
like ingestive heart failure stroke or
sepsis for example
now what i mean by this is there's
certain what we call core
measures to where we have to provide
specific
education about that disease process
for that patient here's a great example
like for stroke we have to make sure to
educate our patient of what the signs
and symptoms are of stroke
and when to call 9-1-1 when they
discharge from the hospital
this education is so very important that
we educate
and document that way if the patient
goes home
they know exactly what to do and when to
call 9-1-1
now let's talk about just the pathway of
education
there's those two big pieces of a course
teaching and the learning
side when we're talking about teaching
this should be an
interactive process that helps promote
learning
and there's a lot of interpersonal
communication
that's effective when we're making sure
we keep those
learners needs in mind now the learning
piece is of course
just that acquisition of that great
knowledge
now let's talk about the role of the
nurse in regards to education
we of course have an ethical
responsibility to teach these clients
we've also got to make sure that the
information that we give them
is accurate complete and relevant to
them
and we need to identify what does the
client actually need to know
and when are they actually ready to
learn
now when we talk about learning here are
some factors we've got to consider
when we're providing education so number
one are they even motivated to learn
now this is important to assess in your
patient because if this is not the time
and they don't seem motivated
or even willing to learn that could
create a barrier to providing education
also consider what's their ability to
learn are we providing
the are we providing education that's
appropriate to their cognitive ability
their developmental level or are they
even
feeling well enough because they're so
ill
are they even able to learn at this
point in time we of course need to
assess that
and of course think about the learning
environment that you're providing
education
in this allows the person to attend to
instruction
is it at the bedside or is it maybe in a
clinic setting
or an outpatient setting now when you
talk about the learning environment
we may overlook this sometimes as a
nurse but here are some key factors to
remember
about a positive learning environment to
facilitate education
and knowledge acquisition can we have a
well-lit environment also is it
ventilated is a comfortable temperature
do you have the appropriate resources
this could mean online resources they
could this can be a computer or even
education handouts is the learning
environment
quiet this may seem silly i know we're
in the hospital setting but as much as
possible
this and privacy is important because
you want the full attention of the
client
and again sometimes all of the
information with education could be hard
to hear
with a busy loud environment
of course anytime that we provide
education
we must evaluate learning otherwise how
do we know that that education was
effective
so here are three great ways in making
sure that our patient
has understood our instructions and we
can evaluate learning for them
so this first one is what we call the
teach back method
this is the absolute gold standard and
one of the best ways to evaluate
learning
so here's a great example of the teach
back method
maybe your patient has to go home on a
blood thinner injection that goes into
their abdomen
now as a nurse we're going to provide
diligent education on this particular
skill
for the patient then we need to
have that patient teach back to us how
they would perform that skill
and of course we will evaluate to make
sure that the patient
understands all those key pieces and
evaluate this learning
and again this is one of the absolute
best ways
in a really common method that we use
and of course
verbalizing back any type of instruction
that we give them
and that they understand and written
validation is
another great way that if we provide
education
that the patient can write out exactly
what they're comprehending
and the instructions that we give
now let's talk about what is a client's
preference for learning
as you can imagine we all have different
learning styles and preferences
so it's really important that you
consider these and assess this before
you educate with your client
so one of those is consider relevant
reading materials
now this can come in the form as like a
specific
oh diabetic diet plan for someone who's
newly diagnosed
medication information sheets diagnosis
information or just education pamphlets
now some patients may
really like reading materials because
they've got something on hand and
something they can refer
back to also some of your patient may be
more hands-on or a visual learner
so you can use particular demonstration
videos
recordings or just hands-on activities
now some patients may like a really easy
avenue of stuff like
podcasts internet websites that they can
refer to
or online support groups where it's a
non-biased place in a non-judgmental
place where they can ask questions
and of course we have educators that are
specially trained
to provide thorough and accurate
information
a great example of that is a diabetic
educator
it's a very large complex disease
process
and those diabetic educators can support
them along the way
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