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hello and welcome to the patient educators update where we talk about
patient education in a clinical environment
I'm Chuck Jones with Synergy Broadcast and I want to welcome our expert guest Fran
London
Fran is the patient education specialist at Phoenix
Children's Hospital
in Phoenix Arizona and she is also the author of the book
No Time to Teach, the essence a patient and family education for health
care providers
we use Fran's book for the majority of our topics and
this week is no exception. We're gonna take a segment from a
section towards the end of the book
in I'm and titling this episode what's the point of patient education
in as some background on then I found a quote the other day that I thought was
kinda
interesting it comes from met
Berry who is the founder and CEO of Orca
Health and he says patient education
is a monster monster problem any back set up with some
statistics from his company this is that more than half of all visits to the
doctor's office don't result
in optimal care because the patient doesn't understand
what the doctor is saying he goes on to say this problem is called
low health literacy and cost the nation as much as 238 billion with a B
per year with $73 billion
attributed to hospital stays caused by the patient not understanding or
adhering to the doctors instructions
so what do you say about their well
I creates a big problem but I
think it's maybe not as it easier to solve them
him twice %uh well health literacy is really out
problem occurred acetate with the patient really
is incapable of understanding so it needs to be presented in a totally
different way in already to
match the understanding of the patient whereas I think a lot of be
on non-adherence that he's talking about is
not deal on literacy skills but
really that the doctor is not being clear that it's a communication issue
and and not my literacy yeah so there's a big difference when low literacy and
low information low information can be caused by poor communication
you know the doctor says you need you know your watch mccall
new Jacuzzi in the gas as well okie dokie
but he doesn't know what those things are and doesn't stop and ask the
question
very which would continue the discussion
because he doesn't want to appear dahmer whatever but he's smart enough to
comprehend it if you just ask a question
exactly you know unlike the person who either
because I love any number of things just
couldn't possibly understand what the doctors talking back because they don't
understand
the medical terms how the body works they have trouble with thought processes
I mean there's just a ton of things that can cause low literacy
but what your you're saying is the
the bigger issue is not the low literacy that's a small portion other in Israel
but the bigger problem is the
low and poor communication between doctor and patient
or nurse and patient compare right okay it
okay so with that as a background
let's see if we can can it tie this up for folks I'm gonna go back to the
premise
arm love the title which I said what's the point of patient education by asking
you want the questions from your book
what is the point providing healthcare the plate health care is
really to improve health outcomes
in the long run that you really
want to help people get there yep yet it's him
long-term health yet there's no doubt about that okay well then
what has the greatest impact own long-term health care
is it the five-minute doctor visit or something else
well me you can you can make some change within the five-minute doctor visit
%uh the doctor you can do to manage treatment worker strikes again treatment
that you know you will go out if they are feeling a little bit better than you
did
when you lock it but you know it impact on long-term health care you really have
to
on have the patient change behaviors and you take medication
change lifestyle do things differently so that
the health improvement sticks
yet now you have a great quote that runs off and on throughout the book
that after the immediacy up saving lives
self-care behaviors have the greatest impact on long-term
health outcome and that's where the patient education comes in
exactly you the whole point is we need to spend
light line make a teacher education understands what to do take care
stop are and it here be a reader sent it to deal with those
so that you can improve health outcomes on the way what's the point
yeah exactly in on you know the last question I was gonna ask is what has the
greatest impact on self-care
and and basically you answer that it's the information in coaching
this provided in the patient in family education
now there there's an another interesting sentence in the book
that I thought it was worth bringing up here
in in right from your book it says the time you spent teaching
cost less then the complications medications hospitalizations and
surgeries
you can prevent and
deaths huge absolutely he it is huge and I me this is this is some is not in bold
print in your book and probably ought to be
it i mean that that one sentence dis
the speaks volumes love the relative importance of patient education and
kinda put it in perspective because
what so often to the nurses are the doctor say
I don't have time to teach and i'm looking at the big picture
right and its its easy to spend money on com
high tech stuff for a look at you can using
other things too on
help solve the problems but really
the conversation is cell important your there's no doubt
there's no doubt so so we we hope to the message here
is is one that
folks will take to heart I'm reread the senate's once again the will close out
the show
the time you spent teaching cost less then the complications
medications hospitalizations and surgeries you can prevent
so with that is a closing statement wanted to tell folks how they can find
you online to get more good information like this
well I'm at no time to teach dot com got a blog
there and I'm also on Twitter at no time to teach
and for those either interested in purchasing France book it's available
Amazon in I'll other book resellers and
e-tailers and is available in both paperback
in digital form for your Kindle readers in
what not and if you are interested in
stepping up your patient education by providing some additional tools
to your nursing staff we would encourage you to add video is one of those things
because there's a lot of great
educational programs out there that help turn complex
topics into simpler terms for patient-centered
don't have medical degrees so and you can buy more about that by visiting our
website synergy
broadcast dot com and looking for our
video-on-demand system we call it MMDS or medical
media delivery system and will put links to all the show notes
all the stuff we talked about the show notes today so frantic so much for your
time
I appreciate it now look forward to talking to you next time
by check bye bye
the