I feel there is a divide of how health care professionals need to adapt to the current and future needs as it pertains to patient education. There are two groups that need to be considered; the population that is 65 years and older now and the people that will reach that threshold in the next 10-20 years. Both groups will require different approaches to teaching them to better manage their medical conditions. The thought process of selecting the proper technology to maintain interest and engagement still applies but greater emphasize needs to placed on how that age group prefers to receive information. Creating the coolest mobile app will not improve patient compliance with taking their medications for a chronic condition if end user simply prefers an automated phone call reminder. The group that is currently below the 65 years old threshold will demand more access to their own health information and value more the flexibility of maintaining contact with health care providers through web or mobile based mediums. This younger age group will likely have the pressures of caring for their elderly parents who are living longer and still provide for their own children. As such, flexible communication options and personalizing content will be most important to them.
I have already seen changes in how technology has improved the patient experience when I went to a walk-in clinic in Toronto. The group of clinics I believe was created by a group of young physicians and their technology friends. I was able to find the location that was nearest to my work and look up the current wait times on the internet. When I arrived at the walk-in clinic there were two kiosk monitors where you were prompted to swipe your health card and briefly enter the reason for your visit. You could choose from a list of doctors that were working in the clinic at that time and each one you selected would tell you exactly how many patients were ahead of you to see that doctor. I was called in shortly after and seen by a nurse who confirmed my reason for the visit and took my vital signs to make sure nothing more serious was going on before the doctor saw me. This is example of the expanding scope of healthcare professionals in different settings to triage patients. Overall, I thought it was a great experience and saved me time during my lunch time to get a prescription. Would someone in the over 65 years group have the same feedback on this type of experience?
When Alexander (2014) described campuses having agreements with hospitals in order to better place students and graduates it made me think of a recent partnership that our organization has completed. This is partnership is between the University Health Network and The Michener Institute which is the first of its kind in Canada for a hospital to merge with an applied health sciences education institute. I found it very interesting to read about it from Alexander and actually see it materialize with the organization that I work at. This partnership will strengthen the delivery of health care as students will be directly trained in line with the needs of the hospital.
References
Alexander, B. (2014). Higher education in 2014: Glimpsing the future. Educause Review, 4(5) Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/higher-education-2024-glimpsing-future?utm_source=Informz&utm_medium=Email+marketing&utm_campaign=EDUCAUSE
New Media Consortium. (2015). NMC Horizon Report 2015: Higher ed edition. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-HE-EN.pdf