How Digitizing Education Can Help Deliver Better Outcomes in VA Medical Centers
Katie Layfield, PT, MPT, Senior Client Success Manager
Patient education is an essential component of delivering effective healthcare, especially for hospitalized patients. While the ultimate goal for providers is to ensure their patients recover and are discharged safely, achieving this requires more than just medical treatment. It requires empowering patients with the knowledge they need to take active roles in their own recovery and ongoing health management.
The Importance of Patient Education
For many healthcare providers, the primary focus has always been on delivering immediate care—administering medications, performing surgeries, or facilitating physical rehabilitation. The care team understands the diagnosis and the appropriate treatments to get the patient better. But here’s the crucial question—does the patient know how to get themselves better? The answer is often no.
Providing high-quality patient education ensures that patients are fully informed about their conditions, treatments, and the steps they need to take to manage their health post-discharge. Unfortunately, this vital aspect of care is often overlooked or inconsistently delivered.
In many cases, patient education is provided verbally during the moment of care or through written materials. The quality and comprehensiveness of this education can vary significantly depending on who is delivering it. Some patients may receive detailed explanations and comprehensive guides, while others get minimal information. This inconsistency can lead to gaps in understanding and poor health outcomes.
The Case for Digitizing Patient Education
Digitizing patient education offers a scalable and consistent solution to this problem. Digital platforms can provide standardized, high-quality educational content that can be easily accessed by patients at any time. This ensures that every patient receives the same level of detailed, understandable information, regardless of who their provider is.
Benefits of Digital Patient Education
- Consistency and Quality: Digital platforms ensure all patients receive uniform information, reducing variability in patient education.
- Accessibility: Patients can access educational materials anytime and anywhere, making it easier to revisit and understand the information provided.
- Engagement: Interactive elements like videos, quizzes, and personalized content can make learning more engaging and effective.
- Tracking and Feedback: Digital platforms can track patient engagement with educational materials and provide feedback to healthcare providers, allowing for more tailored patient support.
Implementing Digital Education in Veteran Health Care
Veteran health leaders have a unique opportunity to innovate and improve patient care through digitized education. By integrating digital patient education platforms, Veteran Affairs Medical Centers can ensure that Veterans are better informed about their health, leading to improved outcomes and patient satisfaction.
The use of brief educational videos, each averaging less than five minutes, has been shown to have a significant impact on patient outcomes. These videos require minimal time from the patient and also free up valuable time for the care team.
The Get Well Point of Care (Inpatient) platform is designed to support Veteran health initiatives through digital patient engagement. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools that help deliver consistent, high-quality education to all patients, enhancing their understanding and engagement in their own care. Here’s an example of what a Veteran education regimen looks like with Get Well:
Best Practices for Patient Education
Identify Education Focused on a Patient’s Needs: Understanding that each patient is unique is crucial. Tailored educational content that speaks directly to a patient’s condition and needs can enhance their understanding and engagement.
Provide No More Than 2-3 Videos at a Time: Offering too much information at once can overwhelm patients. By limiting the number of videos to 2-3, you ensure higher completion rates and better retention of information.
Follow-Up Afterwards: To reinforce learning and address any lingering questions, follow up with patients after they’ve viewed the educational material. This step is essential for ensuring comprehension and adherence to the treatment plan.
Involve Caregivers and Family: If the patient is too ill to engage with the material, involving caregivers and family members can be beneficial. They can help reinforce the education provided and support the patient in following their treatment plan.
Results
Two Southeastern Veterans Affairs Healthcare System saw a decrease in Hospital-Wide All-Cause 30-Day Readmission Rates as more patients engaged with personalized video education. An educated patient is less likely to be readmitted, making brief video education a highly valuable component of the treatment plan.
Conclusion
Incorporating digitized patient education into treatment plans is not just beneficial—it is a critical component of effective healthcare. When patients are well-informed, they are better equipped to take charge of their health, adhere to treatment plans, and achieve better outcomes. Veteran health leaders are leading the way in this transformation by adopting digital patient education solutions with Get Well.
Get Well is honored to enable the continuous delivery and improvement of quality care for Veteran patients with our VA Medical Center partners. Learn more about how Get Well enables Veteran Health initiatives through digital patient engagement at our website: https://www.getwellnetwork.com/veteran-patient-education-software/.