It's estimated that a lack of health education contributes $58 billion annually to U.S. healthcare spending. The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) estimates that nearly half of the adult population (roughly 90 million people) falls into the category of low or basic health literacy.

"More and more, patients want and need to take charge of their own health. HealthClips Rx takes patient education to a new level by providing institutions with a way to deliver on-demand, prescribed education videos anytime, anywhere," said Jon Otterstatter, founder and CEO of Preventice, a leading developer of mobile health applications.

"Not only does HealthClips Rx make education accessible and engaging, but it can have a direct and measurable impact on quality of care and reduce the burden on nurses and staff."

The new multi-device platform is the product of a partnership, between Milner-Fenwick and Preventice.

Technology to empower patients

Improving patient outcomes and reducing hospital readmission rates through the combination of mobile computing and prescribable educational videos is at the heart of this new approach to improving patient education in clinical settings. The videos, in true Milner-Fenwick style, address key chronic health and preventive care topics that coach patients through concepts such as lifestyle changes, hospital safety, prescription medicine adherence, and when to call the doctor.

This powerful combination of content and technology empowers health care providers to:

• deliver selected prescribed content to patients in-facility, in their homes, or on the go
• provide consistent, coordinated care across providers
• allow patients to easily bookmark videos and insert notes for improved patient/provider collaboration
• enable continuous content improvement through real-time feedback on patient use
• assign a unique, yet de-identified code to each patient to track full or partial viewing
• export viewing history data back into health care systems to track against outcomes such as readmissions and quality improvement initiatives

How it works

HealthClips Rx is used by hospitals and other health care facilities, to give their team members (physicians, nurses, patient educators, and discharge staff) the ability to quickly create and customize educational "health playlists" from over 435 titles via the Preventice HealthGuardian cloud platform. Customized, on-demand content is then delivered through mobile and internet-connected devices.

“HealthClips Rx takes patient education to a new level by providing institutions with a way to deliver on-demand, prescribed education videos anytime, anywhere."
Jon Otterstatter, founder and CEO of Preventice

According to Preventice, the company's cloud platform recognizes the individual and syncs educational progress allowing users to:

• maintain a session across iPad, iPhone or home computer platforms without interruption while watching a single segment
• bookmark content on any device,
• easily add notes to content to improve communications with care providers, and
• easily share educational information with family members and home care providers.

According to Preventice and Milner-Fenwick, this application provides a consistent, interactive, and measurable educational format. HealthClips Rx follows the patient from bedside to home recovery and closes the health education gap. De-identified patient information can be securely logged into a facility's EMR system and evaluated against readmission data to measure education effectiveness on an ongoing basis.

"Numerous studies, including several that have used Milner-Fenwick patient education videos with research subjects, have shown that patient education can have a dramatic impact on health outcomes," said Richard Milner, CEO of Milner-Fenwick.

"To make it easier to integrate the videos into care, we needed a new kind of video that not only would take advantage of the internet and mobile apps, but could also be used at just about any touch point in health care delivery. The result is HealthClips—short videos that act like information building blocks."

"The videos are prescribed and assembled to meet the patient's individual needs. This truly is the first step in integrating patient education videos into the delivery of care," Milner added.

Cindy Carson, National Business Development Director and the team lead for HealthClips Rx at Milner-Fenwick explained, "As the role of EHR systems in healthcare increases we are there to meet it, reporting patient education directly into patient records and closing that loop.

"As the role of mobile devices increase in healthcare, we are there to meet it, providing flexibility and greater reach to healthcare teams as they adapt to changing patient needs and a more patient centric approach to care. We know there's a lot of good we can do in disease prevention and disease management through education. This is another way for educators to deliver the messages effectively."

The product was launched at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco, September 26–27, and is currently being used at a prestigious univeristy hospital as part of a pilot program on iPad utilization in clinical care.

Click here to receive more information on how to use videos on an iPad.