Sunday, 26 January 2014

All You Need Know About Patient Education

By Eliza Mendoza


Patient education is meant for educating sick persons and boosts their health literacy. In this, the sick persons are assisted in understanding basic health information as well as the available services. With this information, they are able to make the right decisions concerning their health and are able to easily follow treatments guidelines. Educating the sick persons should be taken seriously as many have very limited understanding in health matters.

According to the healthcare research, it has been revealed that people from different races, ages, income and academic levels have a have very little knowledge about their health. Lack of this awareness has led to many sick persons incur high medical bills. This has been estimated to be up to four times of what they actually would have paid if they had ample health care knowledge. The burden of paying these unnecessary hefty medical bills has been left to the health care system to cater for them. These are billions of dollars due to hospital admissions and doctors visits only.

One thing that limits a sick person from getting this knowledge is hiding his confusion and ignorance from the expert treating him. This is because the sick person feels ashamed and intimidated to ask for help. The purpose of knowing about his health is to be able to improve the health behavior and status.

The other main benefit is to improve or maintain the sick person health and in other cases it slows down the rate of deterioration of the sick person condition. When a sick person is well educated and informed they are able to keenly participate in their own treatment and assist in errors identification before taking place. In addition, improvement and outcomes are achieved and in instances where the person suffering from a disease is admitted in a health care facility for their admission length is reduced.

It is important to ensure that sick persons are well educated. Having knowledge about their health empowers them so that they are able to manage and cope with their health. This learning create a self awareness in sick persons regarding their health status. They are also able to understand the diagnosis, treatment options as well as consequences to the sick person and the family members.

When the sick person is educated, he is able to make sound decisions concerning his health care. He is also able to follow the instructions of the treatment plan for his health. Educating a sick person helps his learning attitude which is healthy hence enables fast recuperation. A well educated sick person becomes more confident about his health care which helps to minimize any possible complication during the treatment process.

This not only benefits sick individuals, but also organizations that take time in educating their sick clients. Some of the benefits that these organizations reap by educating those suffering from various diseases include increased customer satisfaction and ability to comply with standard regulations. Medical malpractices are significantly reduced.

Every health institution should ensure that sick people receive patient education to enhance their health. With many people being educated, their family, health facility as well as health care system will all be benefit a lot. More importantly doctors are held accountable in their service delivery.




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