A buyer’s guide to patient education
Updated September 30, 2024
What is patient education?
Patient education is the ability to supply tailored health education content to the patient throughout the care continuum across a variety of modalities including text, video and analog. Robust patient education offerings provide benefits such as better care plan adherence, improved outcomes, and higher patient satisfaction scores. The leading digital solutions automate the process, delivering condition-specific health education to patients at the right time and place in their care journey.
Ongoing self-service patient education is accessible on demand anywhere, at any time, and can range from web-based health libraries to personalized content on mobile apps. Full-service patient education solutions fulfill two key roles:
Content curators that create educational content or source clinically validated material from third parties.
Content aggregators that deliver educational materials and engagement opportunities to patients and consumers.
Patient education use cases
We’ve seen a shift in the market away from solutions that focus solely on content creation and toward solutions that function as content delivery mechanisms. It’s important for health systems to understand whether they need more engaging and personalized content, a delivery mechanism, or both. Additionally, health systems should be working towards the education being contextual, and tailored to the specific needs and circumstances of each patient. It’s an opportunity to show patients that you know them and the journey they are on. We can’t be sending preventative breast cancer screening education to someone going through a breast cancer journey.
— Marisa Furney, Healthcare Consumerism Expert for AVIA
The case for patient education
Patient education in healthcare faces significant challenges, with 88% of US adults having substandard rates of health literacy.1 This lack of understanding leads to poor health outcomes such as increased revisits to the emergency department.2 Traditional patient education methods are often time-consuming for staff and ineffective for patients, with studies showing that patients forget up to 80% of verbal medical instructions immediately after leaving the doctor's office.3 Digital patient education solutions have the potential to address these issues by enhancing accessibility for patients to engage with their medical care.
Enhancing patient understanding and engagement
Digital patient education can address these challenges by providing accessible, interactive, and personalized content. Multimedia platforms can cater to various learning styles, improving retention and understanding. For instance, interactive apps and videos can explain complex medical concepts in simple terms, enhancing patient comprehension. This approach aligns with modern consumer expectations for on-demand information and can significantly improve health literacy.
Drive better health outcomes and reduce healthcare costs
By implementing digital patient education solutions, health systems can empower patients to better manage their health. Well-informed patients are more likely to adhere to treatment plans, make healthier lifestyle choices, and engage in preventive care. This can lead to reduced hospital readmissions, fewer unnecessary ER visits, and overall better health outcomes. Digital education tools can also automate routine information delivery, freeing up healthcare providers to focus on more complex patient needs. This shift not only improves patient care but also helps in managing healthcare costs more effectively, positioning health systems at the forefront of patient-centered care innovation.
Key attributes of patient education solutions
Leading patient education solutions offer the following key features:
A. Accurate and relevant content
Ensures content is accurate, unbiased, and in the best interests of the patient.
Continuously updates materials to reflect the latest studies and findings.
Provide information relevant to the patient's immediate needs to support confident decision-making.
B. Historical context and tracking
Automatically records when patients receive materials.
Gauges patient comprehension and engagement.
Uses tracking data to avoid repetition and reinforce critical messages.
Supports care plan adherence through targeted follow-ups.
C. Interactive and multimodal interfaces
Delivers education through various formats (e.g., print, video, audio) and modalities (e.g., websites, mobile apps).
Implements engaging and user-friendly interfaces, such as drag-and-drop functionalities.
Helps patients visualize their medical conditions and find relevant materials.
Utilizes augmented reality for in-the-moment reminders to encourage health-conscious choices.
D. Guided and personalized care journeys
Implements condition-specific journeys or pathways to guide patients through care plans.
Provides targeted interventions when appropriate.
Offers personalized materials about risks and benefits of different treatment options.
Empowers patients to form preferences and participate in shared decision-making.
E. Easy to understand materials
Tailors content to patient comprehension and health literacy levels.
Pairs straightforward text with medical illustrations to simplify concepts.
Applies current health literacy principles in software design.
Offers multilingual functionality to support patients in their preferred languages.
Uses patient education to clarify diagnoses, support shared decision-making, and build trust between patients and providers.
F. Integration with care team workflows
Minimizes care team workload through automation.
Incorporates education into existing workflows.
Provides content suggestions based on patient health history.
Offers features like tagged favorites and folder access for quick content retrieval.
Displays educational content alongside contextual data showing team assignments.
Ensures real-time access to relevant health data for care managers.
G. EHR integration
Seamlessly integrates patient education with the EHR system.
Enables content suggestions based on patient health history within the EHR.
Provides quick access to educational content alongside patient data.
Ensures real-time data accessibility for care preparation, during encounters, and follow-ups.
Organizing for success with patient education
Prior to choosing a vendor and potentially adopting a different approach ot patient education, health systems should:
❑ Establish their clinical objectives to ensure that a new solution aligns with their goals
❑ Assess the strengths and weaknesses of any current patient education offerings
❑ Consider how digital education fits into the context of their broader digital strategy and how a solution could add value for patients at multiple touch points throughout the health system
❑ Identify the central functions that a new solution should offer—patient engagement and personalized care journeys, a content delivery mechanism, or both
❑ Get buy-in from clinicians and staff
❑ Upgrade technical infrastructure and hardware where appropriate
Make sure you visit AVIA Marketplace ahead of your next purchasing decision for unbiased third-party information, ratings, and reviews for hundreds of the leading digital health companies and solutions.
AVIA Marketplace is where innovative health systems and hospitals go to find the right digital health solutions. It’s built to efficiently search vendors and guide informed decisions, with tools like product comparisons, match scores, report generators, peer reviews, and market insights.
Brought to you by AVIA, a trusted company and community of experts who guide health systems on their digital transformation journey.