Tools link staff to on-line teaching sheets
Step-by-step instructions gives easy access, success
The intranet at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has a multitude of patient education information to aid clinical staff in teaching patients. About 700 teaching sheets created in-house are on-line. Also, several commercial sources for educational materials are on the intranet, including Micro-medex, MD Consult, and Pediatric Advisor. However, these references are to be used as back-up resources to the in-house materials.
"Anything specific to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is our first resource for educating patients and family. We are also loading some of our booklets on-line now," says Kathy Ordelt, RN, CRRN, CPN, patient and family education coordinator.
The patient education resources are loaded on the intranet under a reference tab. Yet what the education department discovered is that putting materials on-line didn’t necessarily mean they were easily accessible to staff. One problem is that clinical staff often are not computer-savvy. "They don’t have the knowledge or the skills that enable them to be able to navigate the system," says Ordelt. Time also is a problem, for it often takes staff too long to get to the resource.
Normally, in clinical settings, patient care programs are open on the computers. In that way, it is convenient to order tests or put in physician orders. As a result, it is important that staff know how to navigate the intranet to find the educational resources in an easy manner that makes good use of their time, says Ordelt.
To make sure that staff could quickly find the appropriate links for educational resources and knew what to do once the program opened, two tools were created. One tool is an 8½- by 11-inch brightly colored, laminated sheet that lists the resources, how to get to them on the intranet, and what to do once they are uncovered. The sheet can be hung on a bulletin board next to the computer in the nurse’s station. A second tool has the same content but is designed in a different format. The information is on flip cards held together by a notebook ring. These flip cards often are hung on a plastic stick-on hook on the side of the computer.
The laminated sheet and flip cards first explain how to log on to the intranet. Once they are on the intranet, they are instructed to click on the reference tab and then the reference source they want, whether in-house teaching sheets or a commercial source, and the step-by-step instructions continue providing the guidance needed to help staff find the appropriate teaching sheet.
Six topics covered
The tools have directions to four teaching resources (the in-house sheets and three commercial products), the Spanish communication guide that helps staff with Spanish terms and phrases until an interpreter arrives, and a staff education source called "Take Five for Patient and Family Education."
With Take Five, staff can read about a patient and family education topic and print it out to take with them in just five minutes. At the end of the year, they get to add up all the five-minute intervals they spent on education and receive inservice credits. "This year, we are going through the Joint Commission standards in the Take Five’ series," says Ordelt.
After staff have read the directions a couple of times, they become familiar with the computer and how to navigate the intranet. They also become more familiar with the educational resources that are available to them. "It highlights the resources that we have. We were finding that staff would say, MD Consult; I have never heard of that.’ These tools put the information right in front of their face. It’s another way to publicize the programs we have," says Ordelt.
To ensure that staff would be able to reach the teachings sheets needed in a timely manner, a query box was added to the in-house collection. In this way, staff could type in a topic, such as pneumonia, and all the resources pertaining to that topic would come up on the screen. The three commercially available teaching programs on the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta intranet have either a query box or index that makes them easy to navigate. In addition, teaching programs and sheets pop up quickly on the screen as staff navigate the system looking for appropriate teaching materials.
"Whatever we release in patient education is great, but if staff aren’t using it, they don’t know about it, or don’t know how to use it the resources won’t do us any good, no matter how wonderful they are. We have to complete the whole process with staff education," says Ordelt.
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