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Patient Education: the Expert Patient
If you are involved in patient education, working
with those newly diagnosed with asthma, diabetes
or heart disease, our programmes are an effective
tool you can use. Delivering information in bite
size chunks, in an easy to use way, makes patient's
learning fun. Hearing from real people in video
clip format, about how they manage their disease,
brings peace of mind and acceptance. Experimenting
with interactive activities such as food shopping
for a diabetes diet teaches patients through experience
- thereby having a deeper and more long-lasting
effect on the choices they make to maintain their
health.
Benefits to patients
and healthcare professionals
- Enables health professionals and patients
to access just the information they need thus
avoiding information overload.
- Offers information as video, text or graphics
enabling more efficient and effective communication
of essential information
- Provides activities enabling people to learn
from the choices they have made. Learning "by
discovery" promotes better understanding
and longer retention of information.
- Provides consistent quality of information
and helps to ensure the efficient use of health
professionals time
- "Discovery" improves levels of motivation
encouraging patients to play their part in managing
their health.
Benefits of multimedia
- enables people to access just the information
they need
- offers information as video, text or graphics
- provides activities enabling people to learn
from the choices they have made
- provides consistent quality levels of information
assisting the efficient use of health professionals
time
- improves levels of understanding and motivation
Does it work?
The first programme to be produced was Learning
Diabetes. It is now in use in over 80 diabetes
clinics and GP surgeries in the UK plus sites
in Australia, Belgium, Iraq, the Netherlands,
Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA and
the West Indies.
The programme model (also used by all the other
programmes) was evaluated through a 2 year research
study funded by the British Diabetes Association.
The findings of the study were that there was
significant improvement in knowledge acquisition
and an improvement in self-management. The overall
acceptance rating of the programme by patients
was high with 82% of insulin treated and 87% of
non-insulin treated patients finding the programme
quite or very useful. Patients of all ages showed
that 74% of insulin treated and 78% of non-insulin
treated found the manipulation and use of the
programme quite or very easy.
Using Multimedia in
the care programme
These CD-ROM programmes can be used with individuals
or small groups to enable patients to learn more
about their condition and the way others have
managed it.
It can be accessed through standard multimedia
computers situated in waiting areas or designated
educational areas. It can also be used with portable
laptops, or with touch screen monitors. Some practices
loan out the programmes.
Provision of access to these programmes enables
patients to continuously refresh and improve their
knowledge thus saving the time of busy health
professionals.
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Cost of each programme: £19
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