Introduction
Modern health policy functions in such a way that vital importance is given to patient education. It contributes to increasing the life expectancy of various medical institutions’ wards, improves the quality of care, and also reduces the cost of treatment. By teaching a patient, nurses help him or her to adapt to the current illness to maintain the most natural and highest possible level of quality of life. A rather urgent task is the readiness of junior medical personnel to participate in the implementation of various training programs and information technologies. The development of medicine in the field has provided the emergence of different techniques to accelerate the process of recovery and help patients. Therefore, during their practice, nurses need to pay attention to the introduction of new resources and devices that can improve the quality of care.
Purpose of Information Systems for Patient Education
The primary functions of information systems for patient education are to assist nurses in the management of records and clinical records, as well as support for decision-making. Such programs, as a rule, are designed to explain to patients the risk factors of a particular disease. Also, they increase the motivation of people to a responsible attitude towards health and the implementation of medical recommendations. As Bastable and Gonzalez (2016) note, educational systems help patients to monitor their health and study the basics of self-help in case of emergency.
Currently, nurses of clinical institutions use local electronic diagnostic and patient monitoring systems to point out typical problems. When necessary, employees supplement these bases with their comments and diagnoses and make adjustments throughout the whole course of treatment. Besides, nurses can exchange information within certain electronic systems. Such databases help medical employees obtain necessary information about a particular patient, which allows them to understand the individual characteristics of each of their wards better and find the most successful approach to the treatment process (Hansberry et al., 2017).
Electronic Resource for Patient Education
According to Athilingam et al. (2016), the most useful forms of patient education are various Internet sites where information from different spheres is collected in a form convenient for reading and studying. Most people today have smartphones and other electronic gadgets with access to the network. That is why many clinics specialize in creating both narrowly focused platforms for a specific target audience and various applications that contain general useful information related to health.
Typically, these applications have a colorful interface with convenient navigation, which makes them easy to use. Since many patients receive recommendations to pay attention to such sites and applications as educational resources, the creators of all these platforms do their best to enable people of any generation to find the information they need easily. One of such electronic resources is the Mayo Clinic website (“Simplify your health,” 2017). One of its branches is in Jacksonville, Florida; its doctors specialize in the treatment of severe diseases, and their educational portal is quite fascinating and at the same time useful.
Content of the Resource
The informative base of the Mayo Clinic contains many different topics and directions, and one of the most popular resources that are available to people is an electronic application adapted for smartphones and tablets (“Simplify your health,” 2017). In addition to information about specific diseases and the ways of their treatment and prevention, this database contains quite a few additional materials on a variety of topics. The creators of the application tried to do everything possible to make their product use and at the same time convenient. The division of all sections of the platform into specific topics helps people quickly navigate and find those articles and tips that are most useful. Moreover, this base contains different stories of patients who share their experiences and discuss the current problems of treating certain diseases. The resource is rather popular and in demand, and what is most important, it is a good example of an electronic platform for patient education.
Personal Experience of Using the Application
My experience regarding personal health re-education was related specifically to this application. Two years ago, my attending physician prescribed me a wellness diet and a set of procedures to improve the overall tone of the body and recover faster after hard work. The doctor advised me to pay attention to an electronic resource of the Mayo clinic (“Simplify your health,” 2017). I was rather skeptical, but after I downloaded the application to my smartphone, I found it useful and efficient.
Firstly, it contained all the information I needed, including all the necessary exercises, as well as the principles of proper nutrition. Secondly, I gained quite a good experience, having studied other people’s reviews of the problem similar to mine. Furthermore, the information field of the resource is constantly being replenished, and it is a clear indicator of a properly oriented policy of educating patients. Perhaps, the only thing I would prefer to fix in this application is the opportunity to get advice from qualified specialists directly. Nevertheless, the capabilities of this service and its content allowed me to understand that my skepticism about modern electronic teaching methods was unreasonable.
Possibilities of Using Information Systems for Patient Education in Nursing
The introduction of electronic resources and other information sources can allow nurses to work more productively. If people are aware of possible causes of their illness, as well as about the prevention of certain ailments, perhaps the junior medical staff of hospitals will be able to achieve higher results in their activities. For example, when patients do not want to take a particular medicine or refuse treatment, it negatively affects the course of therapy quite often. Many people tend to trust the Internet more than doctors’ diagnoses. Probably, a high-quality educational base will save nurses from the need to prove the effectiveness of this or that treatment if patients are familiar with the consequences and side effects of their diseases (Athilingam et al., 2016). The primary thing is that such an information platform should have reliable and useful data; otherwise, the use of this system is unlikely to be effective.
Thus, the need to use new resources and devices that can improve the quality of care is fully justified regarding efficiency and benefits. The use of modern technologies in the process of treatment can provide an opportunity to save budget funds and make control over patients more convenient. Using such techniques in my practice will help me to structure all the necessary information and achieve higher productivity. Any form of storage and dissemination of valuable data among patients is an indispensable condition for successful therapy and faster recovery.
References
Athilingam, P., Osorio, R., Kaplan, H., Oliver, D., O’neachtain, T., & Rogal, P. (2016). Embedding patient education in a mobile platform for patients with heart failure: Theory-based development and beta testing. Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 34(2), 92-98.
Bastable, S. B., & Gonzalez, K. M. (2016). Overview of education in health care. In S. B. Batable (Ed.), Essentials of patient education (2nd ed.) (pp. 3-22). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Hansberry, D. R., Agarwal, N., John, E. S., John, A. M., Agarwal, P., Reynolds, J. C., & Baker, S. R. (2017). Evaluation of internet-based patient education materials from internal medicine subspecialty organizations: Will patients understand them? Internal and Emergency Medicine, 12(4), 535-543.
Simplify your health. (2017). Web.