HealthClips is a new video product developed by Milner-Fenwick for the delivery of patient education through in-facility CCTV systems and via the internet for home viewing. GetWellNetwork is the first on-demand vendor to integrate this resource into the hospital setting. Heather Boyle-Townsend is their Director of Patient Education. Patient Education Update talked to her about HealthClips and the impact it will have on patient education in the hospital setting.

 

Patient Education Update: New technology is rapidly changing the delivery of health education. How does GetWellNetwork see HealthClips fitting into this new landscape?

Boyle-Townsend: HealthClips works very well with interactive patient care. Using the GetWellNetwork system, hospitals have the ability, to push out that content to any patient in a bed. The clips are very short and succinct, and focus on one specific topic area of that patient’s diagnosis, condition, or treatment. It’s much more palatable for the patient.

PEU: The core idea of HealthClips is short video segments, 2-3 minutes long. Why is this more effective?

Boyle-Townsend: Retention is the key. The retention is much higher with the shorter clip because, if you go much more than seven minutes, patients go to sleep or are interrupted by the care team who are checking vitals and all that. Also the Joint Commission doesn’t recommend anything much over seven minutes for retention purposes. That comes from the Joint Commission’s Guide to Patient and Family Education, 2nd edition.

HealthClips works very well with interactive patient care…retention is much higher with the shorter clip…

PEU: Can this resource be used prescriptively?

Boyle-Townsend: Yes it can. Through interactive patient care, we can link different video clips together and tailor a series of Health Clips for a patient. If we have a heart failure patient who is a smoker, we can tailor smoking cessation clips along with specific information on heart failure like a prescription.

PEU: Besides being shorter, what else is important about HealthClips?

Boyle-Townsend: When I teach our hospital clients the best and most ideal way to provide education, I share that it needs to be engaging, it needs to use first person voice, and it needs to have a text base along with graphics and animation so it’s engaging for the patient and family.

PEU: A lot of patient education videos are nothing more than just talking heads.

Boyle-Townsend: Exactly and that is just not engaging enough. The patient doesn’t internalize that the way that they internalize the level of engagement that Milner-Fenwick provides. And again, by that I mean using that first person voice, using the photography, the filming of real patients meeting with physicians and having conversations like “Gee, I didn’t think this would happen to me” or “I was scared” or sharing or expressing empathy.

PEU: How does interactive technology work?

Boyle-Townsend: GetWellNetwork provides technology that allows our hospitals to provide what we call pathways. These pathways are developed based on a diagnosis. So, if I’m doing a smoking cessation pathway, it actually pushes information out to the patient that says, “Have you smoked in the past 12 months?” How they answer that question then causes the next thing to fire. So if they say yes, we have them watch a beginner or level one smoking cessation video.

We can then build comprehension questions at the end of the short clip which determines how much information that person is retaining. Then, how they answer that question can fire off the next relevant question, like, “Have you tried quitting smoking before?” If they answer yes, then we can jump to the next relevant step like getting started on quitting again. Then the pathway sends out the content to that patient.

PEU: So you give them what they need when they need it.

Boyle-Townsend: What you are doing with Health Clips is taking that quality content and breaking it down into parts and pieces. For instance, you may have a frequent flyer patient that has been re-admitted. I’ll use the congestive heart failure patient, Mr. Smith, who was in the hospital last month and went through a series of educational videos. Maybe he doesn’t need to go through that again. Maybe he’s doing okay on activity. But maybe what he really needs is to be reminded about how to weigh himself everyday and the process that he needs to go through with his fluid intake. So the nurses on his care team can prescribe those specific areas of education and not bog him down with all the other areas.

Nurses and care teams need to practice their care in more efficient, consistent ways. Joining HealthClips and GetWellNetwork technology, you’re going to get a consistent message that your unit wants to provide.

PEU: Do you think hospitals are adopting the prescriptive video model?

Boyle-Townsend: Yes, if they are smart they are. They have to. The demands on nurses are so much more now than they’ve ever been. Nurses and care teams need to practice their care in more efficient, consistent ways. Using GetWellNetwork technology and marrying that technology with great patient education content like Milner-Fenwick’s HealthClips is a way that they can practice much more efficient, more consistent patient education. They meet their guidelines from the Joint Commission and other regulatory bodies, again consistently and efficiently.

PEU: How does this help provide a more consistent message?

Boyle-Townsend: With nursing turnover, that is where the word consistent comes in. You may get new nurses coming through your unit very frequently. Joining HealthClips and GetWellNetwork technology, you’re going to get a consistent message that your unit wants to provide.

PEU: Are hospitals ready to provide this type of interactive technology for patient education?

Boyle-Townsend: You know when we meet with a hospital, or are at a conference, everyone’s jaw drops open. They all think it’s phenomenal. Consistently across the board, they all want to be able to use this type of technology. Its time has come. I think everyone is just planning for it now. I think many hospitals have this type of technology but many more will be able to prepare for it to happen. You know change is difficult but they’re planning and preparing for it.

PEU: Most hospitals don’t have on-demand technology yet. Do you see that picking up?

Boyle-Townsend: Yes, everybody wants it. I think it’s a budgeting issue. I think that electronic medical records will have to come first, and obviously the pharmacies and labs are coming first. The way they view it is that this is a “nice to have” not a “need to have.” But the cost of not having education that is consistent and efficient is huge. If you can prevent one CHF patient from being re-admitted, the dollar amount associated with that, many times pays for a significant part of this system.

…without the quality content, nurses don’t want to turn it on and patients don’t want to sit through it.

PEU: Will Joint Commission guidelines help push this forward?

Boyle-Townsend: Yes. One of the requirements for the Joint Commission, and you can look at all this on the standards and guidelines, is to involve the patient and family in communication and keep them in the loop. Also they (the patient and family) are the most important member of the care team and should be asked to take responsibility for being a member of that care team. 

PEU: Are there any other factors?

Boyle-Townsend: Some hospitals see it as a “nice to have” but when you look at it, look under the covers, it’s no longer a “nice to have.” It is definitely becoming a “need to have.” The Joint Commission, the core care, Medicare is absolutely demanding that the hospital get the patient and the family much more involved. At the same time, they’re demanding that nurses take many more steps to take care of their patients, and they don’t have the time or the resources to do it.  It’s alright; we just need to give nurses the tools they need to do their jobs.

PEU: Can you give an example of how this can save money immediately?

Boyle-Townsend: Hospitals need to educate patients, specifically around safety measures like hand washing, teaching patients to speak up, ulcer prevention, and fall prevention is huge. Hospitals need to be responsible to do that in a way that doesn’t bog down the nurse. So if a hospital prevents one fall, which beginning this year will not be reimbursed from Medicare if the fall occurs at the hospital, that’s a huge amount of dollars. So by providing that patient the education they need at the bedside at the right time, consistently and efficiently, that is going to prevent falls and that is where hospitals will see immediate return on their investment.

The continuity of care from the physician office visit to the acute care stay to the hospital stay and back home; for that patient to have the same message repeated, hospitals and care providers love that.

PEU: Getting back to HealthClips, how involved is the hospital educator in the decision to use this?

Boyle-Townsend:  I see it different at different hospitals. There usually is an expert from that specific unit. So, if we are talking about heart failure, we’re going to ask that the cardiovascular team, nurse educators specifically, to participate in choosing that content. There is usually a sign off from a cardiovascular physician, and/ or someone like the chief nursing officer. So we like it to be a team effort.

PEU: We originally developed HealthClips for web delivery to patients at home. Do you see hospitals adopting that approach?

Boyle-Townsend: It’s very positive and becoming more and more important. The continuity of care from the physician office visit to the acute care stay to the hospital stay and back home; for that patient to have the same message repeated, hospitals and care providers love that. There is a cost involved, which sometimes has stopped them, but we’re moving in that direction for sure.

We are going to be providing web delivery of HealthClips for a hospital in Virginia. They are the first ones to use it that way. So when patients go home they’ll be able to link back to the hospital website and see the same materials they saw when they were an in-patient.

PEU: Why is that important?

Boyle-Townsend: Many times patients in hospitals are just not in a good state to retain any knowledge. This is due to many very real reasons; medications, their ability to comprehend, they may have just received a diagnosis which is very significant. Their mind is just not wrapped around it yet. So to repeat that information when they go home is very, very valuable. And it’s there for other family members who may not have been with them in the hospital.

PEU: So how will GetWellNetwork fit in with internet delivery of patient education?

Boyle-Townsend: First and foremost we can send a very nice message to the patient at the bedside that says “Mr. Smith when you go home after discharge, you can receive the same education.” We provide the web link and remind the patient as often as the hospital wants us to, that they and their family have access to that website.

PEU: Do you think you will have a role helping them put it on their website?

Boyle-Townsend: Yes, we absolutely will help them. We can’t do it for them, but we can make sure that they have the content in the format that they need it in. Yes we will be helping behind the scenes.

PEU: Any final thoughts?

Boyle-Townsend: Quality content drives utilization of interactive patient care systems. Because without the quality content, nurses don’t want to turn it on and patients don’t want to sit through it. Without that quality content, all the technology…so what! That’s the most important thing that I can say. And that’s why we appreciate Milner-Fenwick HealthClips so very much.