Is that the final draft? Let patients review
Handouts not complete without patient input
Great Plains Regional Medical Center in North Platte, NE, has a materials review process in place that ensures handouts are medically correct and professional. Yet the review process didn’t include consumers until last year when the public relations committee decided their input was vital.
"We do all this work to have materials reviewed by professionals who go over them with a fine-tooth comb, but if they don’t make sense to the patient of if they are too technical or if too many big words are used, all our work is for not," said Barb Petersen, RN, patient education coordinator at the medical center and a public relations committee member.
The consumer review process is simple and does not take a lot of time. Two laypeople review each brochure at the same time professionals are looking at it, after it has been written and graphics have been selected.
The two consumers selected for the review process are volunteers at the medical center and are chosen by the volunteer coordinator. The coordinator often tries to find a volunteer familiar with the topic. For example, if the brochure is for patients with congestive heart failure, one consumer might have the disease. However, each brochure is reviewed on a case-by-case basis, says Petersen.
Frequently the volunteer coordinator will e-mail Petersen to see if the two laypeople selected for the review process are a good choice.
The original plan was to find two patients with the condition the brochure addressed. For example, congestive heart failure patients would review brochures on that topic. "That becomes very labor-intensive, and none of us really had that kind of time or energy," says Petersen.
Although only two volunteers are selected to officially review the handout, the two copies of the brochure often will remain on the main volunteer desk for a couple of days, and when volunteer’s check in they will review the copy and write comments.
"Often more than two people are actually looking at the copy. Sometimes it is four or five volunteers reviewing it during the time it is on the desk," she says.
The consumers are not given a set of guidelines to follow during the review process. They receive a cover letter that invites them to write all over the copy as they see fit. "I don’t give them the actual professional review form because it seems like it is too structured. I want them to look at the handout and write down whatever comes to their mind first," says Petersen.
Review proven valuable
Consumers find information that does not flow well, sentences that don’t make sense, and printing errors others have missed. When Petersen sent a pediatric pain brochure out for the final review she thought that it finished until it came back with several question marks and comments. Several pain scales on the brochure were confusing to consumers, she says.
For the final draft, information was moved around so that it made more sense. One sentence had been cutoff by a pain scale during formatting, and other reviewers did not catch the mistake.
The consumer’s input is used in the final draft about 75% of the time, says Petersen. "Once in a while, there is a comment or suggestion to change a word that doesn’t seem fitting, and if I do choose not to use the recommendation I will often send the handout back to other professional reviewers for their opinion," she says.
Changes from the professional review and lay review are made at the same time. When the brochure is complete, a copy is sent to the originator, whether a committee or single person. Once the originator approves the suggested changes a final draft is again sent to a group of professionals for review.
It’s extremely valuable to have consumers review patient handouts, says Petersen. "If patients can’t read it, if they can’t understand it because it is too technical, if they just don’t like it or the format is bad, they aren’t going to read it and won’t make use of it," she explains.
Health care professionals try to explain technical words and procedures in their own terms when writing handouts, but it doesn’t mean anything to patients, says Petersen. With consumer input, the end product has better results, she says.
For more information about the consumer review process for patient handouts, contact:
- Barb Petersen, RN, Patient Education Coordinator, Great Plains Regional Medical Center, 601 W. Leota, North Platte, NE 69101. Telephone: (308) 535-8640. E-mail: [email protected].
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