Breaking through Patient Education Barriers: Success through Individualized Mobile Tablet Education

Purpose:
Translating patient education research into practice in our complex health care environment of short stays and complicated medical and self care regimens requires staff buy-in, patient engagement, creativity, efficiency in workflow. The use of mobile tablet technology provides these benefits.

Significance:
Patient education is critical to effective patient centered care, allows patients to actively participate in health care decisions, and is an important aspect of preventing readmissions through producing the changes in knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to maintain or improve health.

Strategy and Implementation:
Over 400 3-5 minute video clips on topics including wellness, falls prevention, procedure specific teaching, and management of illnesses are utilized in personalized playlists which are selected by care providers longitudinally throughout the patient's stay. Patients watch the assigned videos at their leisure, and repetition is utilized without frustration by nurse or patient. The nurse identifies and tracks which videos have been viewed in their entirety, and provides corresponding written materials. Patients flag the video where they have questions, and the nurse addresses questions and assesses the learning objectives through thoughtful conversation and motivational interviewing based on the patient's new comprehension. By spending less time with a general overview, and more time initiating teach-back of key concepts and troubleshooting identified barriers to self care, the time spent by the nurse in patient education is value-added and satisfying for both the nurse and patient.

Evaluation:
Pre and Post-Survey results identify that patients feel overwhelmingly more confident in their self care and more knowledgeable about their condition after utilizing the mobile tablets. Additionally, nurses identify the tool as beneficial to patients and easily accomadated into their workflow.

Implications for Practice:
Increasing value-added nursing time while allowing for individualized patient education satisfies patients and staff and enhances patient safety. The tablet's use has currently expanded to all patients on the unit, with a critical look at readmission outcomes and NDNQI data to report in late 2012.