The Advantages of Electronic Patient Teaching

As more sectors of the medical field adopt technological improvements, advances are being made in both the quality and the quantity of paperwork tracking. Many hospitals engage in patient education -- guiding patients through informed consent forms and teaching them about their illness with pamphlets and other educational tools. Tracking what education patients have received, as well as making the tools themselves digital, can have many advantages.

Access

• One of the advantages of keeping patient teaching records electronically is that they can be found and accessed easily. Physical records need to be located in a storage space. If physical records are located elsewhere, personnel must wait for them to be mailed. Electronic patient teaching records can be accessed anywhere, and if they're in another system they can be emailed. This time savings can be a lifesaver.

Resources

• Old-fashioned patient education, with its printed materials and forms, takes a lot of paper. Switching to an electronic patient education system, in which a patient reads the necessary information and fills out forms on a computer, saves paper. Though a computer terminal is more expensive than ink and paper, it can be cheaper in the long run, depending on how many patients need to undergo a teaching session.

Storage and Tracking

• Physical record storage can take up a lot of room. File cabinets and manila folders put on shelves year after year can get out of control. Electronic records of patient education are stored in a computer database and take up relatively little room.

  Additionally, electronic records can track what parts of a patient's education have been completed and which remain unfinished. This can summarize for medical personnel what paperwork needs to be finished.