Most hospitals already have a TV in every room and waiting area. This platform can be leveraged to enhance patient care. Thousands of hospitals nationwide, have upgraded TV systems with features such as dedicated educational programming. Television has become a facility-wide teaching tool, which comforts and engages patients. It helps fill the void felt by healthcare professionals who want to give each patient their focused attention but can’t due to patient loads.

 

“Nurses don’t always have the time to sit down and be side by side with the patient to go through every component necessary, but (a health channel in patient rooms) allows the nurse to give the patient time to take in the new knowledge that they need to gain and the come back and validate any issues or questions that the patient may have,” says Mary Ellen Clyne, Executive Director at Clara Maass Medical Center. “Besides the ability for people to learn about new diagnoses, chronic conditions, and health conditions they may have, it also addresses the cultural needs of the patients that we serve.”

 

Consumers who may have “tuned out” warning messages from their physicians are transformed by the “teachable moment” when they are hospitalized for a serious medical condition. When patients are diagnosed, it can be a time of profound fear and confusion; this is when they “tune back in”. Patients who have had access to health programming think higher of their hospital.

 

A recent survey conducted on behalf of GE Healthcare* brings this into perspective:

• 43% of Americans surveyed felt that they didn’t receive enough information regarding their own or a loved one’s condition during their last hospital stay.

• In addition to speaking with a doctor, 49% prefer to receive information on an illness/condition and its treatment via television or video.

• 87% believed it’s important to educate patients in a hospital because it helps them to take better care of themselves.

• 90% would watch a TV channel in a hospital if it had programs focused on their specific disease, its treatment, and how to change their lifestyle in response.

 

Just as nurses and doctors can increase their effectiveness by using television as a tool, patients also feel the positive effects.

 

There are a number of companies that help hospitals who might be considering ways to increase patient engagement, compliance and satisfaction via their television infrastructure. Services range from a simple, inexpensive upgrade or addition of a dedicated health channel all the way to more complicated and costly on-demand delivery systems, which interface with patient records. Some common attributes to look for include:

– Fit to existing infrastructure as a way of keeping costs low

– Productivity and support of the clinical care team

– Hospital IT compatibility, flexibility and scalability

– Relevant, accurate, diverse and continuously updated programming

– A mix of condition management and preventative/wellness content

– Appropriate literacy levels of content

– Reinforcement of hospital care initiatives, regulatory compliance requirements, and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

– Reliability and uptime

– Pre-admission and post-discharge access to content via the internet, smartphones or other technologies to support continuum of care and hospital branding initiatives

– Metrics on utilization, reach and effectiveness

– Ability to customize/add hospital specific content and branding

 

The technology is already in place; it is simply a matter of turning it on.