| Learning Objective #1: Identify the reading level appropriate for health care information/education-–eighth grade or less | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Identify at least one other requirement (besides reading level) for creating a useful, Internet-based patient education tool |
Making information available to patients is increasingly more difficult as per-patient allotments of time by physicians and nurses decrease. However, multiple studies indicate the power of patient education on decreasing length of hospitalization, pain scores and pain medicine needs and also increasing patient satisfaction.
Over 50 million American adults use the Internet to access health-related information. There are several requirements for a web site to be highly rated. These include being unbiased, accurately written with an identified source and understandable by the average reader. Vernacular should be used. Promotional material should not be easily mistaken for legitimate information.
The average American adult reads at the eighth grade level. On average, however, online patient education materials were written at the twelfth grade level. This makes the sites that are currently available essentially useless to the general population seeking healthcare information.
Even people with good reading skills appreciate the educational writing style with these points in mind and are not offended by simple reading material.
Specific patient concerns related to anesthesia are about: not waking up; awareness or waking up during surgery; postoperative pain; nausea and vomiting; pain during the procedure; uninhibited talking; and painful procedures.
In an effort to improve online anesthesia education, I have developed a web site that addresses anesthetic concerns and has an unbiased, readable format. It is my hope that patients in search of education on anesthesia will be able to access this site and then actually learn and understand the information provided.
The methods described herein are appropriate guidelines for all patient education media, including video, pamphlets and handouts as well as the Internet. Health care practitioners can easily incorporate these methods into their patient education modalities.
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