Teaching aids: Surveys keep resources on track
Pamphlets and videos are valuable tools
Educators often emphasize the fact that it is the nurse, pharmacist, dietitian, or other discipline who does the teaching, and handing a pamphlet to a patient is not teaching. Yet most would agree that pamphlets and videos are valuable tools in that teaching process.
There are a variety of ways to ensure that all those involved in educating patients have the tools they need for teaching. At City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, CA, needs assessments are conducted among staff and patients. For example, staff in the education department recently conducted interviews among staff in radiology and surveyed patients at the same time.
"As part of our needs assessment among staff, we ask, What are your greatest challenges in educating patients and their families?’ Asking them to identify the greatest’ challenges helps us in identifying priorities among the various needs that staff may identify," says Annette Mercurio, MPH, CHES, manager of patient, family, and community education at City of Hope.
Identify barriers
Lack of patient-teaching resources, such as printed handouts and audiovisual aids, only is one barrier to teaching. Lack of time, language barriers, and even difficulty with access to the patient can hamper education. Staff can select any one of these as the most challenging barrier to teaching patients, but if resources were pinpointed as a problem, they would become a priority. (See examples of City of Hope’s Respiratory therapy survey 1 and 2 & Materials survey 1 and 2.)
Another question on the staff survey that helps identify materials needed on specific topics reads: "If patient, family, and community education could help meet one patient education need within respiratory therapy, what need would you like us to work on?"
Choices include:
- consultation regarding best approaches to use when teaching our patients;
- obtaining or developing printed patient teaching materials on topics such as (insert topics);
- obtaining or developing video patient teaching materials on topics such as (insert topics);
- obtaining additional comments.
Staff at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison most often approaches the education department with requests and suggestions for resources. "In addition, I follow the organizational strategic initiatives to ensure that we have materials pertinent to those highly visible clinical areas," says Zeena Engelke, RN, MS, patient education manager at the health care system.
Calls from staff to the learning center asking about resources and how to deal with difficult issues help pinpoint difficult areas of teaching that need to be addressed.
The department representatives who sit on the patient education committee are good connections and helpful for material needs, says Diane Moyer, MS, RN, program manager for Consumer Health Education at The Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus. These representatives also act as the contact in between committee meetings and deliver requests for videos and written materials.
Word about patient education difficulties staff are having also comes from these representatives. Inservices that address particular concerns or issues of staff on units often are offered. At that time, Moyer evaluates the need for additional materials to aid in teaching. Sometimes staff simply aren’t aware of available resources in the system, says Moyer.
A tracking system that can be used to identify material use often helps to uncover which resources need to be better promoted among the staff. At the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, a database tracks use of resources by unit and clinic and other vital statistics such as the last time the material was revised.
Periodically, staff in patient education look at the data to determine if the right units and clinics are using Health Facts, says Engelke. "If they aren’t, it’s usually a matter of letting the staff know that they’re available. More often than not, it’s a lack of knowledge of the available resources rather than resistance to use them," she says.
At City of Hope, the education department orders materials for all patient care areas, so if an area isn’t requesting material, it indicates that the resources aren’t being used, says Mercurio. Also, focused studies, usually surveys, are used. With this method, staff are asked a series of questions about integration of materials into teaching and barriers to use of materials.
For example, on one unit, staff indicated on a survey that lack of a well-organized collection of materials on the unit was the top barrier to their use of materials. As a result, the patient education department worked with a designated nurse on that unit to catalog and reorganize their collection of materials. "We conducted a follow-up survey and found improvement on all measures related to materials use," says Mercurio.
Other factors that often signal the need for new resources or updated materials include changes in technology, treatments, new equipment, and changes in service areas, says Moyer.
Sources
For more information about assessing for patient education material needs, contact:
- Zeena Engelke, RN, MS, Patient Education Manager, University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, 3330 University Ave., Suite 300, Mailbox Drop 9110, Madison, WI 53705. Telephone: (608) 263-8734. E-mail: [email protected].
- Annette Mercurio, MPH, CHES, Director of Patient, Family, and Community Education, City of Hope National Medical Center, 1500 E. Duarte Road, Duarte, CA 91010-0269. Telephone: (626) 301-8926. E-mail: [email protected].
- Diane Moyer, MS, RN, Program Manager, Consumer Health Education, The Ohio State University Medical Center, 1375 Perry St., Room 524, Columbus, OH 43201. Telephone: (614) 293-3690. E-mail: [email protected].
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