Three Ways Patient Education Improves Safety and Quality of Care

It’s a family’s nightmare: a car accident. It happened to one pediatrician and his child. The pediatrician was okay, but his young daughter complained that her head hurt, so they went to the ER. While the ER doctor looked over the little girl, she recognized the pediatrician and began using high-level medical terminology to explain her assessment. The pediatrician held up his hand and said, “Stop. Please explain this in simple terms. I’m a father today, not a pediatrician.”

If a doctor experiencing a medical crisis wants simple medical explanations, imagine how important it is for patients who are often faced with highly technical or woefully bare-bones health information. How can anyone take care of themselves—or their loved ones—if they don’t even understand what’s going on?

Not only does effective health education help patients understand and stay safe when they need it most, but it helps improve outcomes and reduce readmissions. Here’s how.

1. Patient education helps patients in crisis clarify, remember, and be safe

Dealing with a health scare or diagnosis is almost always disorienting and difficult. And when people are stressed out, their ability to think clearly and remember new information is diminished.