5 Ways Nursing Patient Education Can Reduce Readmissions

Nursing Patient Education
Nursing Patient Education

The article, “5 Ways Healthcare Providers Can Reduce Costly Hospital Readmissions”, by Our Thought Leaders states

“Founder and CEO, Robert Herzog of eCaring describes how healthcare providers can reduce costly hospital readmissions to avoid costly medicare penalties.”

American Institute Health Care Professionals’ insight:
Great article! Good nursing patient education advice. It all hinges on good patient education. Recommended read for anyone in the hospital management field.  To learn more about patient teaching, click here:
patient education courses

See on www.hitconsultant.net

Nurse Patient Education Increases Patient Satisfaction.

Group of nurses on a roof top
Nurse Patient Education leads to higher patient satisfaction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Better Nurse Patient Education Could Lead to Better Patient Satisfaction.

The article, “Patient education improved satisfaction after surgery for ankle fracture”, by Mayich D. states

“The researchers analyzed 40 patients who had operative treatment for ankle fractures and were randomized to either an enhanced information group that received handouts with information from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons covering postoperative ankle fracture treatment and a pamphlet outlining standard physiotherapy at the institution or a standard group that did not receive the handouts.”

For the full article please go here.

Nurse Patient Education has shown improvement in ankle surgeries.   It might go without saying that a nurse educator could help improvement other areas in the medical field.    Because truth be told, the more we know about a medical procedure the more comfortable we are going to be about having it performed on us.
If you are a nurse and would like to learn more about earning a Nurse Patient Education certificate then you might want to come to our webpage.

Patient Education and How It Can Help With Compliance.

Patient Education And Why It Is Important.

The article, “Proactive Patient Education and Engagement Helps Hospitals Achieve Stage 2 Meaningful Use Compliance”, Source; Beckers Hospital Review

“The hospital, Ms. Peacock adds, is partnering with two outpatient facilities to continue their educational outreach effort after patients go home, focused initially on congestive heart patients and patients at risk for central line infections.”

For the full article please go here.

With the growing need for quality patient education, any nursing professional looking to specialize themselves should become a nurse patient educator.    Where else can you always be in depend and serve such an important role?
For more information on becoming a nurse educator, please visit our website.

Nurse Educators: Teaching Asthma Patients.

Asthma Patient Teaching: Information that Nurse Educators Should Teach

An older man using an inhaler
Asthma affects young and old.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Unfortunately, this does not apply to asthma patients.
Asthma is characterized by an inflammation or tightening of the bronchial tube passages. Though this can be curable, it affects more than 22 million Americans each year – 6 million of which are children. This is according to the findings of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.
A typical asthma attack involves wheezing, shortness of breath, tightness or pain in the chest and profuse coughing. It occurs mostly at night or early in the morning. Recurrence of the symptoms is often a bad news, as it leads to deadly acute asthma attacks.
This is why doctors recommend attendance in nurse-patient teaching for patients to help them avoid asthma attacks.

A nursing teaching a boy how to use an inhaler
Nurse educators need to properly train patients on how to use their inhalers.

It is vital that patients understand what is going on in their bodies.
Asthma attacks often lead individuals to feel threatened and nervous, thereby reducing their oxygen supply and making the attacks worse. Nurses should then explain the reason behind these occurrences and why they happen.
It is imperative that asthma patients be educated that they have the tendency to hyperventilate during an attack. This results to low carbon dioxide content in their lungs, which is a powerful bronchodilator.
Nurse educators should show patients how to battle this out and the means at which they can normalize their breathing patterns. Acquiring ample oxygen for their body dramatically improves the situation and their health state in the long run. Studies show that when an oxygen level of 20 is achieved, asthma symptoms are alleviated – even without taking medications or using the inhaler. These findings were actually certified genuine by Russian scientists who came up with the Boteyko breathing technique (now recognized by the Russian Ministry of Health).
Patients should have a clear idea on proper medications.
Relief from acute asthma attacks can only be achieved when the inflammation of the air passages is reduced, or the constriction of the bronchial tubes is loosened. The ultimate goal is to foster more oxygen intake into the lungs to give ample supply to the heart, brain and other organs.
Medications can help when breathing exercises no longer work.
But taking the drugs should be taken with caution. Nurses should be able to teach their patients on the proper medications in alleviating acute attacks. If the exacerbation extends for more than 5 minutes, for example, patients should take 1/3 of their prescribed medicine. Breathing exercises should follow.
If this does not work, patients should take another third of the medication and repeat the breathing exercises.
The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute does not recommend that the drugs will be taken all at the same time. As such, patients and doctors should come up with pre-defined medication parameters and plans that set the ideal dose to be taken during the attack.
Nurses should help their patients to determine the factors that trigger asthma attacks.
Logically, something can be avoided by keeping out from those that cause it. This works in the cases of asthma attacks.
Patient teachings should involve an analysis of the common root of acute attacks. This would include poor air quality, cigarette smoke, pet dander and other air-borne allergens, excessive exercise, fatigue, infections, strong scent from cleaning agents, and thick air.
Nurse-Patient Educators should discuss the possible ways on how the patients can avoid these triggering factors: limiting hours inside the gym, spraying deodorizers, using oxygen tanks, or wearing face masks in crowded areas. They have to make sure that these methods will not drastically alter the patients’ lifestyle. A good asthma doctor strives to help the patients without necessarily overwhelming them.
Laying Out Signs of Acute Attacks
Just as said, acute asthma attacks can be life-threatening. There may be several ways to hamper an attack, but it is a must for the patients to call the attention of anyone who could call 911 just in case things get worst. Nurse-Patient Educators should then discuss the early signs of a significant asthma attack to allow the patients to call help promptly.
Decrease in the peak flow meter readings, immediate feeling of tiredness, and signs of allergies should raise a red flag. Sudden shortness of breath and profuse coughing should signal the need to take the patients to the nearest hospital.
If you want to earn your nurse patient educator certification then you need to visit our site.

Nurse Patient Education for Health Promotion

Nurse Patient Education for Health Promotion

While health promotion, disease prevention and recovery information is extremely important in when providing nurse patient education, one cannot dismiss the importance of good teaching skills and motivational abilities. As a nurse educator, you will need to learn how to make good lesson plans, presentations, and patient learning objectives. You will also need to understand how to present these things with up to date technology. This may seem daunting to someone who was only a nurse but teaching like nursing is an art and science that can be learned through time. If you are already a nurse and feel a calling to teaching as well, then nurse patient education may be a field you may wish to enter. If qualified you can take courses at the American Institute of Health Care Professionals and become a certified nurse-patient educator and begin helping others in the area of health promotion and disease prevention.

A nurse helping her patient
Nurse Patient Education is about promoting better health!

If you are want to learn more about being a nurse patient educator then our site is an excellent place to start.


nurse educator

Your Patient Needs Patient Education

Your Patient Needs Patient Education

Two nurses talking to a patient in a wheel chair
Nurse Patient Education is an important part of health care!

Within the role of a Nurse-patient educator, a nurse can find herself or himself teaching a patient about a particular illness and what that person must do to recover or prevent relapses from occurring. However, there is a lot of emphasis as well on disease prevention and health promotion. Nurse Patient educators have a unique opportunity to take health promotion and disease prevention to patients and a variety of other audiences such as schools and community agencies. They frequently work with patients individually and prepare an education needs plan based on patient assessment. They conduct the teaching for the patient and provide frequent follow up to assess the patient’s compliance to their treatment plan. If you have a solid understanding of teaching and a nursing background, you should consider becoming a nurse-patient educator. If qualified you can become certified in this field with the American Institute of Health Care Professionals and begin educating others about the importance of healthy living and disease prevention.
For more information on nurse patient education certificates please visit our site.

Patient Teaching: the New Imperative

Patient Teaching and Health Care Professionals

It is the primary role of health care workers to inform and teach all of their patients. Patient teaching runs the gamut from primary care issues such as diet therapy, medication instructions, wound care, prescribed exercise and other issues of physical activities. The teaching role also focuses on informing the patient about their disease condition and recognizing signs and symptoms of any deterioration in their health status. It is well known that the cause of many patient’s return to a hospital is that the patient did not receive adequate teaching and care instructions before being discharged from a hospital stay. Readmissions drive up health care costs and often could have been prevented. A good patient teaching program in which teaching occurs at the bedside, is very important and health care organizations must insure these programs are in place. Of all health care professionals the nurse has always assumed the role of the patient’s primary teaching. Today, other health care professionals such as pharmacists are also coming to the bedside and teaching patients directly. This team approach helps insure that patients are learning all that they can to be compliant with their treatment plans and prevent relapses in their condition from occurring.

The Role Of A Nurse Educator

The role of a nurse educator is growing in importance today. A nurse has several different imperative roles in today’s health care system, one of which is to inform patients and their families of the diseases that they are faced with. A step above that is a nurse educator. This nurse is using all of their clinical experience and skills to properly prepare their students. They also do a great job of mentoring and teaching fellow nurses who may be new or have less experience. A nurse mentor leads a very active and fulfilling life as they are both informative and emphatic.
Nurse educators are traditionally in charge of structuring, implementing and revising the type of educational materials that fellow nurses receive. This material fits a wide range of uses, from a more academic and scholarly feel to a more concentrated and specific approach for individualistic issues. Nurse educators are often a great sounding board for issues that arise for another nurse that they may be unfamiliar with and have not dealt with in the past. Nurse educators are the keys to assuring quality and factual based content is taught to the entire department.

 Practice and Goals

Because health care is such a diverse and constantly changing field, it is important that those in this position are comfortable with constantly learning and growing. New information and changes in procedural patterns are inevitable so a nurse educator must be willing to easily adapt. Being a leader is usually at the forefront of a nurse educators job. They practice in all type of health care facilities and are generally working with fellow nurses and patients alike.
A nurse educators primary goal is to create a set of curriculum and material that is all encompassing and helpful for their students. Because of their involvement in teaching and being of service to fellow nurses, future nurses and patients, nurse educators often experience a high level of job satisfaction. They take pride in their role of helping another person learn, grow and ultimately succeed in the nursing field. Being of service to others is why many people become nurses in the first place, this just adds to that principle by helping and encouraging others who have that same deeply engrained belief.
There are tremendous benefits for those who choose a career as a nurse educator. The medical field is one of the most stable markets because certain ailments are inevitable. So no matter how badly the economy is doing, surgeons, doctors and nurses will still be around to take care of the sick and dying. Because of this, nurse educators will also always be needed. Another huge benefit of choosing this particular work as a career is the cutting edge technology and information that will be available to you. Wouldn’t it be great to be one of the first people to know about a certain procedure? What about being able to read information about a unique and rare disease? These are the types of things nurse educators do on a daily basis.
Nurse educators are always learning something new and interesting. They are apart of an ever changing and growing workplace that is perpetually knowledge based and intellectually stimulating. Usually nurse educators work in a specific field of study. They often have specialties similar to those that doctors have. These fields can range from cardiology, family health, pediatrics and much more. A general comprehensive background is necessary but usually whatever concentration you are most familiar with is the one you teach. The type of qualifications needed to become a nurse educator usually require a master’s degree but there are some exceptions to this rule.
As a nurse educator you are also entitled to a pretty flexible schedule. Many choose to teach just part time in junction with their other work. Whether that be clinical work or actually working in hospitals directly with patients. Assessing the learning and knowledge of nurses is also a duty that many nurse educators carry out. Making sure that the nurses in the field and those who deal with patients every single day are well informed and knowledgeable is imperative to the quality of care that the patients receive.
There are many different things that nurse educators do but one of the most important is that they are there to teach, answer questions and to really listen to their students and patients. The role of a nurse educator is an important one and those who are willing to do the job are needed. To learn about becoming a nurse educator, access here.

Patient Teaching: the New Imperative

It is the primary role of health care workers to inform and teach all of their patients. Patient teaching runs the gamut from primary care issues such as diet therapy, medication instructions, wound care, prescribed exercise and other issues of physical activities. The teaching role also focuses on informing the patient about their disease condition and recognizing signs and symptoms of any deterioration in their health status. It is well known that the cause of many patient’s return to a hospital is that the patient did not receive adequate teaching and care instructions before being discharged from a hospital stay. Readmissions drive up health care costs and often could have been prevented. A good patient teaching program in which teaching occurs at the bedside, is very important and health care organizations must insure these programs are in place. Of all health care professionals the nurse has always assumed the role of the patient’s primary teaching. Today, other health care professionals such as pharmacists are also coming to the bedside and teaching patients directly. This team approach helps insure that patients are learning all that they can to be compliant with their treatment plans and prevent relapses in their condition from occurring.

Nurse Patient Educator

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