Intranet offers cheap access to materials
Despite pains of use, in-house Web highly effective
Nurses and other professionals at The Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus are finding it easier to tailor information to a patient’s learning needs by pulling information relevant to that particular patient. That’s because they can now access materials on the intranet, a network of computers within the university’s medical system. Patient educators quickly research a category, review the content, and print a copy.
This method of materials distribution not only makes education more patient focused by offering only information pertinent to that patient’s situation, but it also saves staff time and cuts printing costs. Sandra Cornett, RN, PhD, program manager for consumer health education at the Medical Center, expects to cut printing costs by three quarters. Currently, the Medical Center spends about $80,000 annually printing educational materials.
Health care systems around the country are finding that their intranet, usually used to disseminate in-house news and information, is a perfect forum for patient education material. The information can be put on hospital letterhead and inserted into a folder or stapled together to form a complete patient education packet. "Several years ago, we stopped having our educational materials bound and started using handouts with folders. We made that change so it would be easy to switch to a computer system by pulling handouts off the intranet," says Cornett.
Subacute patient education managers who take advantage of their facilities’ intranet are finding they reap many benefits. When patient education materials are in the system, there is less waste because there are no outdated booklets to toss when changes are made. Employee time is saved in filling orders. Units don’t have to find storage space for pamphlets, either.
Cornett expects the intranet to solve the difficulty she has alerting staff when new materials are created or old booklets revised. Currently, she updates the inventory list every three months, so people didn’t receive the information in a timely way. With materials on the computer system, the updates are automatic and staff find new materials when they click the icon for a particular topic. She will stop distributing the 32-page inventory list as soon as all 2,000 documents are in the system and all units have the necessary equipment to access the information.
"This system is good for an institution that uses a lot of internal materials especially if they have a problem with inventory control and distributing and disseminating information," says Cornett.
Intranet as communication tool
At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, the intranet works as an avenue for communication between the patient education department and managers throughout the health care system.
Although in-house materials aren’t yet on the intranet at Mayo, a database of all patient education materials available at the institution is on the system. The list includes all the titles in a category, a short abstract, the copyright year, how long Mayo has been using the material, if it is appropriate for distribution on a rack or is something that needs to be given with provider instruction. Managers can order quantities of any brochure over the system.
"Currently, the intranet helps managers in the planning stages of patient education. They can determine the best materials to have on their unit based on the patient population," explains Donna Wohlhuter, RN, BSN, health education specialist at Mayo who oversees the patient education database on the intranet. For example, if a manager is looking for materials related to chronic renal failure, he or she can go to the intranet, pull all the materials on that topic, and order sample copies to decide what best serves the patient population.
One of the benefits to having a bibliography of patient education materials on the Intranet is that all clinics affiliated with Mayo have access to the materials, even those 50 miles away, says Wohlhuter. Before creating a new pamphlet, staff at outlying clinics can check the intranet to see if the information is already available.
Not an easy task
While there are many benefits to the use of the intranet, the transition is not always easy. "It is a very labor-intensive job to put materials on the intranet; they all have to be entered into the computer," says Belle Koester, MPH, RN, assistant director of patient education at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
At her institution, a special software application was created with the help of an outside consultant. It was designed to distribute outpatient pathways, which became a strategic initiative for the institution.
As each pathway is written, delegates from the patient education department meet with clinicians to help them select corresponding educational materials. The staff update the material and enter it into the program so it can be electronically attached to the pathway. When a patient is enrolled in a pathway, the clinic prints the pathway and all supporting materials, such as consent forms and patient education materials.
It also takes time to maintain the system. "You need dedicated time and staff to maintain the Web and update the materials," says Wohlhuter, who currently updates the site at Mayo.
Cornett uses an administrative assistant assigned to word processing to enter patient education materials into the system and make revisions on pamphlets that have already been entered. Photos from the documents are scanned into the computer so the materials on the intranet can be printed exactly as they were produced at the printers.
Once a system is in place, staff on the units must be able to use it. To train staff, Cornett scheduled a mandatory inservice and created an instruction sheet that explains how to retrieve materials. A training plus is that the system is fairly easy to use. People use a mouse to click on icons that bring them to the materials in various categories.
Despite some drawbacks, Cornett says the future for the intranet looks bright. She plans to link to key reputable sites on the Internet, so staff can find and print information that is not available in-house. She will make provisions to have a disclaimer on any material distributed from Internet sites.
Also, by the end of the year, she expects to have a search engine developed so staff can enter a key word or phrase to quickly find patient education materials on the intranet.
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