Does your patient education measure up?
NCI guidelines provide standards for services
Many of the "best practice" standards come from organizations that create guidelines for programs in a particular specialty. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, MD, for example, is one of these organizations. In 1998, NCI published a revised edition of Guidelines for Estab lishing Comprehensive Cancer Patient Education Services.
Best practice standards were established by a task force of cancer patient educators from the NCI Cancer Patient Education Network (CPEN), which is a group of leaders in NCI-designated cancer centers around the country.
The task force reviewed patient and family education standards created by the Oncology Nursing Society in Pittsburgh, the Joint Commis sion on Accreditation of Healthcare Organiza tions in Oakbrook Terrace, IL, and the Association of Community Cancer Centers in Rockville, MD, in composing the guidelines.
What resulted is a set of guidelines easily adaptable to any setting and not limited to cancer patient education services, says Annette Mercurio, MPH, CHES, task force chair and director of health education services at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, CA, an NCI-designated cancer center.
Just substitute institution’ for cancer center’
"The major categories covered within the guidelines, such as the philosophy and mission, the organization and structure, and functions, are building blocks for an effective institutionwide patient education program," explains Mercurio. Although the words "cancer center" are frequently used, patient education managers can very easily substitute "institution" or "medical center" because the guidelines are quite broad, she says.
For example, every institutionwide education program needs a well-developed mission statement that is tied directly to the strategic objectives of its organization’s mission. To show administrators what contribution patient education makes to the organization, you have to be able to show how it is helping to advance strategic objectives. "Basically, the elements within the guidelines are all elements that are key to gaining administrative support and also building high-quality institutionalized programs," says Mercurio.
During the guideline revision process, the task force surveyed CPEN members and found that they either used the guidelines extensively or let them gather dust on a shelf. Therefore, the team developed a couple of tools to help patient education managers implement the guidelines.
First, they gathered case examples of how members used the guidelines. For example, one manager used the guidelines to develop her strategic plan for education. She pinpointed areas she would need to address to move her program closer to where she wanted it to be in five years.
They also gathered practical documents patient educators developed to implement any of the nine areas of the guidelines, such as tools used to evaluate patient education programs under the quality/performance improvement section of the guidelines. The information was placed in binders and shown at conferences, but eventually the task force hopes to have an on-line notebook at the NCI Web site.
An institutional self-assessment tool included in the guidelines makes it possible for patient education managers to evaluate current programs and determine areas that need improvement. For example, they may find they are strong in policy and procedure but weak in the area of performance improvement. "I have never met any patient education manager who feels that he or she is exactly where they want to be," says Mercurio.
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