January 2000 • Volume 6 • Number 1
Don't miss chances to educate patients in your office
BY SHARON DENT
Austin, TexasIt’s one of the biggest challenges FPs face: effectively and inexpensively providing the information patients need to get and stay healthy.
Family physician Thomas Weida, M.D., medical director of the Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa., offered tips for meeting this challenge in "Patient Education for Pennies: In Your Office" at the Conference on Patient Education Nov. 11-14 in Austin.
Pharmaceutical company representatives have said they usually have to visit a physician’s office five or six times before a new drug’s name and purpose become familiar, so Weida assumed that patients, too, understand and remember health care messages only after repeated exposure. "Develop the global strategy," he said. "Hit patients whenever you can in the office to teach them about a health topic."
Weida encouraged attendees to take a virtual walk through their offices, determining where patients spend the most time. "At each one of those points, you have the opportunity to put patient education to work," he said.
Start at the front door. A poster proclaiming the health benefits of beans greets patients visiting Weida’s office. Make it a quick and simple message, he said.
The reception window in Weida’s office is surrounded with posters, flyers and other educational items for patients to peruse. In the waiting room, they find a gold mine of materials on all types of health issues. "To me, ‘waiting room’ equals ‘education room,’" said Weida. "Your patients probably spend more time there than in any other room in your office. Take advantage of it."
Your waiting room should have areas for adults and children with educational materials tailored to different age groups and placed at appropriate heights for the target audiences, he said. His waiting room also features a TV, VCR and bookshelf filled with health-related videos and other materials that patients can either look at while they wait or check out to take home. The videos are especially helpful for patients who can’t read well (see related story on page 1).
You won’t find neat stacks of brochures in Weida’s office. "Clutter is good when it comes to patient education," he said. "We used to have everything in nice, neat little piles, and no one wanted to mess up the nice, neat little piles. But when someone bumped them, and they got messy, people started picking them up." However neat or messy the area is, keep reminding patients to take any information that interests them.
Patients want a little privacy when reading up on sensitive topics such as domestic abuse, STDs, AIDS, prostate screening and erectile dysfunction, said Weida. When information on such topics sat untouched in the waiting area and exam rooms, "we put them in the bathroom, and now we can’t keep them stocked," he said.
In the hall, give patients something important to think about, Weida said. Place posters at eye level, both for children and adults. Consider the old Burma Shave approach, with a punchy message spelled out in a series of signs along the hallway. Line the walls next to the scale with posters about cholesterol, ideal body weight or other relevant topics.
Other places to focus educational efforts include the exam rooms, nurses’ station and exit, said Weida.
In addition to inundating patients with information, consider adopting a monthly theme for the most heavily trafficked areas. For example, focus on weight management in January, summer safety in July or back-to-school health issues in September.
Where do you find all these materials? Free stuff is widely available if you know where to look (see box at end of story), but Weida also encouraged physicians to view pharmaceutical representatives as a good resource. "Most doctors see a rep coming, and they look like this," he said, cowering and covering his face with his arms. "I see a rep coming, and I’m like this," he said, striking a vulture-like pose.
Pharmaceutical companies produce excellent patient education materials, including videos, booklets, brochures and posters, said Weida, who also takes advantage of the companies’ deep pockets. "We budget funds for patient education, but we also budget income," he explained. "Use the pharmaceutical reps’ marketing money to help fund your patient education program."
Many reps provide free lunches at monthly informational meetings for physicians, but Weida invites them to forego the food and instead post information on a bulletin board in the staff area of the office at a cost of $100 for two weeks. Reps can also sponsor "lunch and learn" sessions, where a volunteer physician makes a presentation on a health topic, and the rep gets a few minutes to plug his or her product. The rep pays an honorarium to the speaker, who donates it to the office’s patient education program.
You can often convince drug reps to underwrite informational mailings, sponsor classes for patients and pay for other educational initiatives in exchange for a little publicity, Weida noted.
Other ideas Weida recommended for patient education in the office:
- Create a grocery coupon exchange box, and place it next to educational brochures.
- Have young patients draw pictures or color posters about topics such as bike helmets, exercise or saying "no" to tobacco. Designate a special section of the waiting room to display the work.
- Offer office tours to school groups. You can take students’ vital signs, demonstrate some of the equipment, talk about health issues and give them materials to take home.
- Provide individual or group counseling to help prevent exacerbation of existing conditions such as diabetes, heart disease or migraines.
- Implement a telephone triage system for managed care patients who aren’t sure that their problems require an office visit.
Perhaps most importantly, Weida said each staff member must feel comfortable playing a role in patient education. "Get everybody in your office involved," he said. "It doesn’t matter who makes contact. What matters is that the education is happening."
Mark your calendar for the Conference on Patient Education Nov. 16-19 in Albuquerque, N.M.
Free (or cheap) stuff
For a list of patient education resources, visit www.aafp.org/fpr/20000100/resources.html or, for a fax, call AAFP Express to request document #7009.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2000 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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