Re-invention of the Wheel

I have been involved with looking at many brochures, pamphlets, and other teaching materials lately given to patients for educational purposes. User-friendly and patient specific should be the goal of any information given when added to a face-to-face session with a medical professional. The timing of the written information should be appropriate with adequate time allowed for follow up. Patients should be encouraged to write questions as they think of them. Some facilities provide folders that include pens and paper as well as a place to collect all information given upon admission, during the stay, and at discharge. That folder can become the place to keep medical information such as history and current medications. The folder makes patients active in deciding on their health care.

A bad example of a brochure would be one that includes too much information on too many topics with confusing medical jargon that is inappropriate for a specific patient.

The question of availability of information and education of information will need to be addressed. What will constitute providing education that can be utalized by a specific patient and the documentation of that education?

A very user friendly web site for medical professionals and lay people can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website www.CDC.gov. under the Dept of Health and Human Services. Access can be obtained @work, @home, @schools, and @ libraries. Of course, the recent PA cuts to library funding affect those looking for information that may not have daily access to a personal computer. The use of the computer also requuires skills. THE GAP then becomes not only between Patient and Physician but financial, age, education, and access ability.

Sometimes after 35 years of nursing, the impact of lacks of the gap seem to be re-discovered.