In recent years, we have seen an increasing number of patients wanting to be better informed and more involved in their disease. Get in touch with an education app development company to utilize different platforms and resources.
This is because of the technological advances in various environments, especially in the health sector.
What is patient education?
Patient education is a process that influences patient behavior and produces the necessary changes in knowledge and attitudes to improve or maintain health. Materials for patient education should encourage patients to adopt new habits. For example, infographics help patients realize that self-care, self-management, and chronic condition management are all possible concepts.
The value of patient education in healthcare delivery
Researchers have found that patients who participate in the decision-making process about their health are more likely than others to understand and cooperate with their disease.
Knowledge and awareness empower patients to be active participants in their treatment. This results in improved clinical outcomes and a shorter stay for the patient.
Patient education helps patients become more involved in their health. It encourages them to be active participants by facilitating discussions between the patient and clinician.
Five Patient Education Technology Facilitators
1: Custom-developed patient education apps
Mobile apps are familiar to hospitals and healthcare organizations. When creating a healthcare app, using tech tools like AI algorithms, voice assistants, and chatbots can free up physicians’ time and improve healthcare delivery efficiency. In addition, mobile apps are a great way to provide patients with relevant information.
The Internet of Medical Things allows the collection of patient data via apps, other connected devices, and HIPAA-compliant healthcare apps.
Healthcare organizations can customize patient education and learning based on the data they collect using big data analytics.
2. Learn to use video-based apps on mobile devices and tablets
Mobile phones and tablets make learning portable and interactive. These devices allow patients to learn about their illnesses at a preferred pace.
The iPad apps made it easy to access videos and illustrations, which helped facilitate conversations between consultants and patients. In addition, clinicians use iPads to display before and after photos of cosmetic procedures.
3. The patients could better visualize the likely post-surgical results
Apps for mobile devices and tablets can be developed to help patients learn through videos, animations, and illustrations that are specific to them.
4. Nurse Intervention for Patient Education
Healthcare organizations are currently using an effective patient education method that uses a custom-developed application to leverage the power of nursing interventions. In addition, nursing attendants are involved in the teaching sessions.
The patient can be informed of their illness and treatment plan, as well as the doctors assigned to them and any tests required.
They schedule sessions with patients and use the teach-back technique. Then, the nurses evaluate the information that the patient has retained and understood from the interactive sessions. These evaluations allow for the customization of patient education programs so that patients easily understand them.
The app provides essential information, allowing nurses and clinicians to focus on high-level notes for patient education.
5. Patient portals to educate patients via telemedicine
Healthcare delivery is shifting rapidly from an outcome-based model, where care is only provided until the patient leaves the hospital, to a value-based one.
Telemedicine is a crucial tool in the decentralization of healthcare. It has shifted focus from cures to care that continues.
6. Hospitals implement tech solutions to meet patient-centric demands
Patients and caregivers can access information remotely through patient telehealth portals, whether specific to a patient, hospital-related, or related to post-care along the recovery continuum.
The hospital readmission rate decreased with the timely provision of prevention and treatment information remotely. As a result, patient satisfaction, as well as hospital satisfaction, also improved.
7. Visualization using 3D Printing Technology
The 3D visualization of ailments can help patients make more informed decisions about their treatment.
3D printing is not only being used in surgical preparations but also in medical education.
Future of Patient Education
Patient education materials must be interactive today. Whether the content is audio or video, it must engage the patients. Quizzes and puzzles online are great ideas, but they will only capture patients’ attention or improve their understanding of information if they are interactive.
Virtual and augmented reality will be the future of patient education. The end of patient education is increased and virtual reality.
Virtual reality also allows users to see what their life would look like if they didn’t care for themselves. Virtual reality can help us visualize what we will look like in 20 or 30 years based on our current behavior. This can be an effective tool for helping people to understand the importance of making minor changes to their behavior today rather than waiting to develop a chronic disease.
In the world of healthcare research, materials for patient education must be updated regularly to remain current. Patients can feel confident in their decision-making when the content reflects recent studies or findings.
Conclusion
Evidence is growing that digital health technologies can be used to improve patient education and implement skills and behaviors essential to lifestyle medicine. Although the development of digital health technologies has outpaced its research, more evidence is needed to support their use in clinical practice. Digital health tools are expected to continue improving their ability to monitor and encourage healthy behavior at a large scale. Get in touch with the top mobile app development company in India to get more insights.
