education technology for Patients

Patient education technology is mounted on the advancement in information technology (IT). The new designs and approaches in IT support patient education and health care delivery since they entail processes that rely on the integration of electronic communication. Healthcare IT empowers patients and targets the patient as the active recipient of the services. These services involve decision making and aim at informing the patient of their health status. Further, the new IT equipment supplements and enhances communication between patients and healthcare professionals. In the previous years, the equipment was created to support the health care institutions and providers; however, today they are designed towards patient centered applications. Hence, the main focus is on patient educations on the delivery systems.

The patients are educated on support interventions that focus on wellness and disease management. This initiative is referred to as a “disease management intervention” and is said to be as an organized health care efforts and communication to the people with conditions that require self-care efforts. Besides, the interventions focus on the disease prevention in the context of consumer health status and wellness management (Moen & Brennan, 2005). This strategy helps to improve the health status of the public.

Patient education technology employs patient-centered applications, which are systems in place to better the partnership between patients and their families with the practitioners. This measure will help form decisions and procedures that consider the patient’s preferences and needs. The developers always ensure that the necessary inputs are solicited regarding the support and education of the patients that enables them to make decisions concerning their health. Such applications will connect the clinical and nonclinical sectors using different health oriented tools. The tools include various communication platforms such as “mobile devices”, “portable monitoring equipment” and “web-based systems” (Demiris, Finkelstein & Speedie, 2001).

Internet-based Applications

The internet offers a stage for the public to attain health knowledge. There are many web-based education platforms including e-learning that contain the information regarding the patient conditions. The public is, therefore, advised to access such sites besides seeking the support from the healthcare providers. Further, such like sites offer health education hence support the patient’s wellness. Therefore, it can be said that the technology is necessary for disease control in different clinical matters including diabetes and asthma management. According to Carman (2013), the patients will be informed of the conditions that require urgent health measures such as cancer. They will as well know the importance of undergoing frequent monitoring so that critical conditions can be detected at an early stage. These ideas are necessary since they support the patient’s self-care roles, which do not involve the healthcare provider.

An “IT-enabled self-care” includes the “home asthma telemonitoring system” that offers continuous individualized help to the patients in their daily schedule of asthma self-care. This system is among the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS), which is an interactive software containing problem-solving tools for patients with different conditions (HIV patients, breast cancer patients), social support and health information. CHESS operates like a web-based application since it increases the patient’s disease knowledge and education (Carman, 2013). The above-mentioned support system can have nonclinical outcomes such as the patient's satisfaction, experience, and the general health portal.

User Acceptance and Usability

The patient education technology involves that acceptance and inclusion of technology in wellness promotion and disease management. In this stage, there are four important factors involved: user competence, confidence usability, and user-friendliness. These factors can be enabled by mobile technology since they consider different hardware matters such as obtrusiveness, noise, size and aesthetic presence. In addition, they relate to the users and their perceptions. The information contained in mobile devices is verified through various steps including data acquisition, networking, manual data entry, use of sensors and networking. These processes are done to increase the user confidence on the idea generated (Perlin, Kolodner & Roswell, 2004). In addition, they ensure that the false alerts are minimized, data security is protected and diagnostic accuracy is observed.

Economic Evaluation

Patient –centered IT requires investments that aim at improving information availability, at the same time reducing costs. To enhance the quality of services offered, there is need to allocate adequate resources to the innovators. The innovators face various challenges in providing the health care services. These challenges include inadequate resources in terms of funding among others. Another major problem in investments in IT applications is the lack of information on the economic impacts likely to be faced. Therefore, patient education technology requires economic evaluation to provide exclusive information on the effectiveness, efficiency and the business gains derived from the IT involvement on the nursing care (Featherly, Garets, Davis, Wise & Becker, 2006). Further, the clinical IT must apply economic frameworks that include return on investment to design a constructive perspective on the patients. However, these conditions can be attained by making direct savings on two specific areas; patient satisfaction and patient empowerment. Nursing care demands for adequate resources to be allocated in these areas to facilitate patient education (Or & Karsh, 2009). In doing this, the technological application will overcome certain practical problems such as user resistance, technical support and training support.

Public Policy Governing Patient Education Technology

The policies set to govern the use of IT in promoting patient education in health care and nursing care involve various stakeholders from varying levels including federal and state. The policies that relate to health care focus on the safety, efficacy and quality of services delivered. Education technology for patient-centered management is expected to use a technology that accesses high-speed telecommunication (Johnston, Weeler, Deuser & Sousa, 2000). For instance, the United States (US) “Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)” has adopted a policy that ensures videoconferencing and other forms of technology are applied to facilitate nursing care to the public irrespective of the geographic distance (Hibbard & Greene, 2013).

The Concepts of Research and Evidence

The health institution must uphold patient education technology. Therefore, it requires evidence and research on the various health issues. Numerous studies are conducted to establish the information that is provided to the health practitioners and patients. In nursing care, nurses are to research and educate patients on certain medical procedures and illnesses (Farahani, Mohammadi, Ahmadi & Mohammadi, 2013). However, the challenge is on the side of patients since most of them do not retain the information given by nurses. I happen to have had such like an experience in my younger ages. I remember being discharged from the hospital by a nurse who gave me certain drug prescription and a follow-up care. However, after two days I completely forgot the drug prescription and I stopped taking the drugs (Farahani, Mohammadi, Ahmadi & Mohammadi, 2013). As a result, I became sick again and had to go back to the hospital for medication. Such an instance, reveal how important the information given to patient is and why the patients should listen to the medical officers.

The research on patient education must involve innovation, which is appropriate for patient empowerment. First, it is important to note that, the healthcare professionals are mandated to provide the patients with the best care possible. In doing this, they are required to come up with new strategies to revolutionize the way the patients are educated on health issues (Street, Gold & Manning, 2013). Therefore, the initial stages of innovation and patient education will not require Information Technology; it will rather involve practical operations including written materials. These operations include medical management and self-care operations. In support of these operations, interactive technology is necessary (Farahani et al., 2013). The technology will provide a delivery model that is efficient in informing and communicating with patients. Also, it serves to assess the patient’s individual needs and advise them accordingly. In utilizing the patients’ personal information supported by teach back designs, motivation approaches, and nursing support. The use of IT will improve the understanding and knowledge of the patients.

In conclusion, the above mentioned, policy, technical, economic, innovation, and evaluative issues relate to the patient health management. Public education technology is aimed at informing the public on various nursing issues. Further, it asserts that IT is important in healthcare since it improvises the information on patient-centered disease management. In addition, it encourages innovation that helps in coming up with different nursing care strategies. The other important aspect of education technology is patient empowerment since the information provided offer the safety and medical support to the patients. Such measures will connect the clinical and nonclinical sectors in health provision. The tools required for these operations include different communication platforms such as mobile devices, portable monitoring equipment. Therefore, public education technology must be encouraged in the health sector.

References

Carman, K. L., Dardess, P., Maurer, M., Sofaer, S., Adams, K., Bechtel, C., & Sweeney, J. (2013). Patient and family engagement: a framework for understanding the elements and developing interventions and policies. Health Affairs, 32(2), 223-231.
Demiris, G., Finkelstein, S. M., & Speedie, S. M. (2001). Considerations for the design of a Web-based clinical monitoring and educational system for elderly patients. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 8(5), 468-472.
Farahani, M. A., Mohammadi, E., Ahmadi, F., & Mohammadi, N. (2013). Factors influencing the patient education: A qualitative research. Iranian journal of nursing and midwifery research, 18(2), 133.
Featherly, K., Garets, D., Davis, M., Wise, P., & Becker, P. (2006). Sharpening the case for returns on investment from clinical information systems. Healthcare quarterly (Toronto, Ont.), 10(1), 101-10.
Hibbard, J. H., & Greene, J. (2013). What the evidence shows about patient activation: better health outcomes and care experiences; fewer data on costs. Health affairs, 32(2), 207-214.
Johnston, B., Weeler, L., Deuser, J., & Sousa, K. H. (2000). Outcomes of the Kaiser Permanente tele-home health research project. Archives of family medicine, 9(1), 40.
Moen, A., & Brennan, P. F. (2005). Health@ Home: the work of health information management in the household (HIMH): implications for consumer health informatics (CHI) innovations. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 12(6), 648-656.
Or, C. K., & Karsh, B. T. (2009). A systematic review of patient acceptance of consumer health information technology. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 16(4), 550-560.
Perlin, J. B., Kolodner, R. M., & Roswell, R. H. (2004). The Veterans Health Administration: quality, value, accountability, and information as transforming strategies for patient-centered care. Am J Manag Care, 10(11 Pt 2), 828-836.
Street, R. L., Gold, W. R., & Manning, T. R. (Eds.). (2013). Health promotion and interactive technology: Theoretical applications and future directions. Routledge.