Introduction
Considering the necessity to provide clients with a high-quality service in a short period of time that exists in any sphere of human activity, there is a range of information systems used by specialists to improve working performance. Nursing information systems are used by healthcare specialists as they present modern computer systems helping to administer data from various healthcare organizations. They provide nurse practitioners with a range of opportunities related to improving the quality of nursing care and timeliness of interventions. Among other things, information systems that store the data on patients’ current conditions and previous assessments can be used to improve patient education technology.
Topic Example
There is a range of tools that can be used by nurses in order to improve patient education and implement new technologies related to this task. For example, nursing documentation systems present a subtype of information systems used in the field of healthcare. These systems are introduced in order to facilitate nursing documentation and provide nurses with an opportunity to use new patient education technologies (Munyisia, Yu, & Hailey, 2013).
One of the most prominent examples of patient education technologies that appeared due to the development of information systems and modern means of communication is online patient education helping to prepare clients for future interventions with the help of LMS (John, A. M., John, E. S., Hansberry, Thomas, & Guo, 2015). The technology is aimed at producing patients with access to a range of educational materials containing the information peculiar to their cases.
The materials used within the frame of the method may be presented in different ways; considering that there are individuals with visual impairments or aural disorders, patients can use audio or video files, seminars, or other types of materials which suit their needs (Huang et al., 2015). Nowadays, online education is becoming more and more popular due to the fact that it helps healthcare specialists to save time and makes the process of education more interesting for patients.
Therefore, online patient education can be considered as a good alternative to traditional meetings with healthcare professionals because this patient education technology is associated with a range of benefits. To begin with, the use of this method helps to provide patients with critical information on their health issues and encourage them to do their own research on the topic. Also, there is a range of ways to implement online patient education which makes this method easier to use; for instance, healthcare specialists can provide their patients with access to education programs with the help of electronic health record (Shipman, Lake, Van Der Volgen, & Doman, 2016).
Continuing on the topic of benefits of online patient education, it needs to be said that a lot of people have Internet access at home, which makes this patient education technology easier to implement. In particular, this fact is important if a healthcare specialist needs to provide education to people with muscle-skeleton disorders who find it difficult to visit their healthcare providers on a regular basis.
Personal Experience
As for my personal experience, which is associated with the topic of patient education technology, the example that I would like to provide refers to the inappropriate use of online patient education, the problematic situation took place almost three years ago when I was visiting one of the healthcare specialists as a patient. Having eyesight problems that were not so severe but caused distress, I needed the specialist to provide me with comprehensive recommendations on practices to be used in order to prevent further decrement in visual acuity.
Considering that I had no Internet connection at home due to technical problems, healthcare specialists allowed me to use one of the computers in her office to access her website and get acquainted with online materials related to my problem. The educational materials that she proposed contained a lot of important information that helped me to understand that my problems were connected with a range of habits that needed to be changed. Therefore, I could ensure that online patient education was an effective method of improving treatment outcomes for patients. At the same time, there was one negative aspect related to the experience that I would like to mention.
As I was looking through the files posted on her website, I noticed that, despite their informativeness, the materials were quite difficult to read because of the fine print. Taking into account the fact that my eyesight was not so bad, I managed to read all materials and write down the primary recommendations, but patients with more serious problems would have significant difficulties. Such a situation can be improved if a healthcare specialist who chooses education materials tries to ensure that all files can be read even by people with very bad eyesight.
Conclusion
In the end, the use of online patient education can be regarded as one of the important patient education technologies due to numerous benefits for healthcare specialists and patients that they involve. The purpose of the technology is to facilitate the education process by providing patients with access to online materials. Based on the example of patient education technology and personal experience, it can be concluded that healthcare specialists using online education need to do their best to ensure that patients can access and use online materials despite their health issues, and I will use this knowledge in my future work to improve the effectiveness of education for patients.
References
Huang, G., Fang, C. H., Agarwal, N., Bhagat, N., Eloy, J. A., & Langer, P. D. (2015). Assessment of online patient education materials from major ophthalmologic associations. JAMA Ophthalmology, 133(4), 449-454.
John, A. M., John, E. S., Hansberry, D. R., Thomas, P. J., & Guo, S. (2015). Analysis of online patient education materials in pediatric ophthalmology. Journal of American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, 19(5), 430-434.
Munyisia, E. N., Yu, P., & Hailey, D. (2013). Caregivers’ time utilization before and after the introduction of an electronic nursing documentation system in a residential aged care facility. MIM, 52(5), 403-410.
Shipman, J. P., Lake, E. W., Van Der Volgen, J., & Doman, D. (2016). Provider documentation of patient education: A lean investigation. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 104(2), 154.