As the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization (JCAHO) punches up its evaluation criteria for patient education materials, hospitals are finding that to make the grade (and get federal funding), patient materials have to "show evidence of learning."
Within the last few years, the patient education component of JCAHO's accreditation process has gone from requesting simple documentation of patient materials to requiring hospitals to prove how effective their patient communications are - from how standardized the programs are across the continuum of care to the patient's level of understanding.
"Hospitals are having to ramp up their patient education efforts because of how intense JCAHO's criteria are," said Shelly Stuard, director of product and market development for Krames Communications (San Bruno, Calif.), a leading publisher of consumer-oriented patient education materials.
In this article, we will focus on patient education materials that address surgery, one of the most difficult hospital services to inform patients about.
Alleviating Patient Confusion
In addition to earning favorable marks from JCAHO, effective patient education campaigns should convey images of caring and concern for patient comfort, alleviating confusion that often leads to medical malpractice lawsuits.
To help hospitals better prepare patients for surgery, two companies recently have launched highly customized "template-style" patient education programs to inform patients on what they can expect from the procedure.
For planned, elective surgeries, Medical Video Pathways (West Chester, Pa.) allows hospitals to deliver personalized information to patient before surgery about specific procedures in a compelling 12- to 14-minute video format. Launched by Custom Communications, Inc. (CCI) earlier this year, this one-stop shop video production company produces videos that inform patients on surgical procedures by using the patient's own physician and surgical team, on-site hospital footage and an intro by the hospital's CEO or president.
Using generic, non-technical scripts to explain various procedures, the customized videos (which can cost $5,000 to $25,000 to produce) enhance physician-patient dialogue, improve the hospital's image and can be an effective risk management tool, according to Greg Hunt, CCI's president. "If hospitals reduce their medical malpractice claims by one percent, they've paid for the program."
The videos take 12 to 16 weeks to produce and are sent directly to patients by at no cost to them (the hospital is charged $30 for shipping.) Useful survey information accompanies each tape on how useful the program is and how it impacts the hospital's reputation. So far, the videos have generated positive patient feedback, according to Hunt. Based on 480 patient survey responses:
- 52% thought the video program improved the hospitals' reputation.
- 60% watched with the video with family members.
- 60% found the videos "very useful."
- 56% said the videos made them less anxious about the planned surgical procedure.
Surgery Guides and E-Sheets
Getting High Marks on Patient Education
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On the custom publishing side, Krames Communications created Your Guide to Having Surgery to meet the growing demand for hospital-specific information booklets. These pre-formatted booklets provide surgery patients a checklist on basic procedures - from admission and pre-op instructions to visiting hours and discharge information. Hospitals customize the guides on the front and back cover with four-color pictures of the facility and location instructions (map, parking).
Designed to complement Krames' 850 patient titles (booklets, brochures, videos) on medical procedures, the guide was launched two months ago. In addition to being a reassurance tool for patients, the guides are also useful for JCAHO evaluations, according to Krames' Stuard, who says that many hospitals order the booklets in time for the commission's evaluations.
Positioned as an inexpensive addition to Krames' other titles, hospitals can order as few as 3,000 booklets at about $6,000 ($1.95 each) with volume discounts applying to larger orders.
Following the lead of hospitals that want to be paperless by the year 2000, Krames is beta-testing E-Sheets (Electronic Education Sheets), a point-of-care patient education software package, that it expects to fully launch in October. E-Sheets, which can be generated from stand-alone PCs or hospital intranets, will provide patients one-page tip sheets on surgical procedures, disease and chronic illness management using high-quality graphics in either color or black-and-white. (Pricing is site-based and ranges from $5,000 to $13,000.)
The E-Sheets also have a documentation component that allows hospitals to maintain a hard copy as well as an electronic log of which patient education materials were given to patients, an ideal feature for JCAHO's "evidence of learning" requirements, said Stuard. (Custom Communications, 610/388-3677; Krames Communic., 800/444-2015 ext. 4422)