Enhance your patient education with these strategies
Don't want your patients looking at Dr Google for information about their symptoms, condition or treatment? Then effective patient education is an essential ingredient for your practice.
Strategies to improve your patient education
Put yourself in your client's shoes.
They've sat in a consult with you for more than 30 minutes - a huge change from their usual 7 minute GP appointment.
They've been given the space to discuss their signs and symptoms and how they are feeling. They've answered a plethora of questions, some that seem out of the box.
They've listened to your explanation of what might be going on; some they understand and other bits that go in one ear and out the other. They discuss with you the next steps forward in the treatment plan to help resolve their symptoms and optimise their health.
There is a lot to take in. They felt validated and heard for the first time in a long time. But what was the cause of their oestrogen dominance? What was the name of that book they should read? Why wasn't their gallbladder functioning optimally?
They try to relay the consult with their partner, but there were gaps and missing pieces they forgot. They left the consult feeling empowered but overwhelmed and with nothing but a suspected bad-tasting bottle of liquid herbs.
Many patients lack the ability to understand health care information. They also struggle to digest the amount of information that's often provided in a consult. This can result in poor compliance or execution of the treatment plan, or even prevent your patient from booking subsequent consults.
If you're looking to enhance your patient experience and improve your delivery, try these patient education strategies.
1. Determine your patient's learning style
Your patient's learning style influences how they like to learn and how they can best retain new information. Finding out how they prefer to learn can inform how you present information to them.
The VARK model is one of the most recognised learning style models which includes the Visual, Auditory, Read/Write and Kinaesthetic. By asking a few questions, you can find out how to best communicate your knowledge and approach with your client.
Find out what your learning style is and how you can capitalise on it here.
2. Take advantage of technology
The current COVID climate has changed the way many of us practitioners work. More of us have jumped online offering consults and courses to our clients worldwide.
If you're still working with physical handouts, making them more accessible and individualised to the patient's needs is important. Rather than a handful of papers to read, think resources of PDF documents, videos or even interactive e-books.
Click here to explore our range of PDF handouts ideal for patient education.
3. Zero in on your patient's interest
Our extensive consultation process enables us as health practitioners to build rapport with our clients. During these consults, we can uncover what makes the person tick, what their interests are and what level of information they desire.
Some clients want detailed information about their health status with some even requesting diagrams of biochemical pathways or a thorough report of test results.
Others, just want a checklist of how they can overcome their health issues and feel great again.
Figuring out what drives your patient can help improve their compliance and thus, improve their outcomes.
4. Offer visual resources
Are you still providing patient educational handouts typed up in Word? While your information may be incredibly helpful, often an unformatted document can be visually unappealing and end up unread.
Patient handouts like those you'll find on Natural Health Resources that have variations in fonts and font sizes, colour, images and feature blocks can entice the patient to actually read them.
They also can appeal to a wider demographic and reinforce your practice's brand so that if shared, other readers can know you're the source!
5. Consider their limitations
When educating your patients, consider their limitations as well as their strengths. How much of the information you provide can they comprehend during your consult?
Does your patient have any mental, physical or emotional impairments that can negatively impact their ability to learn?
Consider factors such as hearing impairments, limited sight, poor cognitive function, shock, fatigue or stress. Do they have a high workload or are they parenting young children? All these factors not only contribute to their health status but also impact your ability to educate.
6. Reinforce your message
Keep at the fore of your client’s mind by reinforcing the message outside the consultation. Thanks to technology, there are so many ways you can do this. Send a text or email a couple of days after their consultation with a “thank you”. Email a digital copy of any printed patient handouts or brochures later in the week.
Share educational content that’s relevant to your ideal or regular client across your social media channels and in your newsletter. While you may not be directly improving the way you educate an individual client, but you are continually sharing valuable information that can help act as a reminder or support to those that need it.
