Results

Clients have embraced it as a tool to help them provide quality care and patient education.

The education is consistent, timely and allows the nurse to provide the necessary education for discharge and self-care at home. Patient and nurse satisfaction is high. Since it is available 24/7, the burden of education does not fall to one shift but can be done when the patient/family is ready and/or available to learn.

Use of Winstanley Associates’ patient education solution resolved the following issues:

• Staffing – need to be able to block at least 30 minutes to do the education each shift per nurse. Simple versus complex education can take 120 minutes or more. What happens on days when staffing to care for patients is a challenge? How much time is allocated for patient teaching?

• Patient readiness to learn – nurse had the time to present the education but the patient is in pain, scheduled for a test or the family member caring for the patent is not available due to work or child care schedules. The Educational opportunity is missed. When the nurse has the opportunity to educate, will the patient be ready to learn? Will the family member be available? This could cause a delay in patient discharges to home.

• Missed opportunities could mean delays in discharges or patients discharged with inadequate education – This could translate into higher patient care costs; increase patient length of stay, lack of information to do self-care at home causing an emergency department visit or a readmission to the hospital.

• Consistent education – the education content was always the same ensuring that all the key aspects of the topic were covered. Nurses that were not as familiar with the education topic now had a tool to help them educate the patient/family for discharge and/or self-care. It allowed for the patient/family to choose their learning preference: audio, visual, reading.