Patient Education: Cost-Effective Care for Communities - Essay Sample

Introduction

Patient education is among the strategies that hospitals are adopting to try and be cost-effective in delivering patient care in the community. According to most of the studies conducted is that the introduction of patient education has a lot of benefits, which range from low costs to the production of high-quality services to patients. However, most of the health care facilities have not been able to agree with the notion of patient education, arguing that it is an expensive initiative, and they should spend those funds on obtaining technological or more advanced medical equipment in the hospital. Moreover, most of the healthcare facilities have started implementing the project with a clear mission of having cost-effective health care services in the future. This paper will review three articles on how patient education reduces health care cost and their practices about sustainability initiative (Red bag waste reduction at a hospital).

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Article 1: Heath, S. (2017, March 1). Patient Education Reduces Costs, Boosts Asthma Outcomes. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://patientengagementhit.com/news/patient-education-reduces-costs-boosts-asthma-outcomes

The article argues that the patient's education program is meant to equip the patient with enough information and knowledge they require to manage their asthma independently without the health care practitioners' help. Also, through the community-based patient education projects, the families and individual asthma patients can manage their asthma conditions, which will result to lower healthcare facilities utilization, which will result in general low healthcare costs (Heath, 2017). Moreover, most of the research and studies find out that uncontrolled asthma is a costly and challenging issue in society. Through the community based patient education program, the healthcare costs of asthma can be reduced with significant margin hence being able to curb the concern in the city.

For instance, Asthma Education (AE) initiatives are recommended as the best programs when it comes to asthma management in society since they are coupled with many and regular medical reviews. Through the patient education programs, the healthcare workers also incorporate some aspects of financial practices that help the patients with asthma, and others with chronic care need to know how to deal with the disease before approaching or seeking medical care in the hospitals (Heath, 2017). From the research done in the article is clear that patient education plays a vital role when it comes to the reduction of healthcare costs since the patients through the family help can overcome the burden.

Sustainable initiative: https://patientengagementhit.com/news/patient-education-reduces-costs-boosts-asthma-outcomes

The article has well-articulated best practices that are geared towards the sustainability initiative of Red bag waste reduction in the hospitals by making sure that the medical workers are well informed about the program. The Red bag waste reduction in healthcare facilities is highly encouraged to have cost-effective patient care whereby there are low healths costs incurred at the same time the hospitals remain green or pleasant environment with less pollution that happens due to crowding of patients at the facility. The best practice for the red bag waste reduction in the hospitals is through the empowering of the employees, and this is achieved through the involvement of the staff in the community-based asthma education program. Therefore, the article completely supports the Red bag waste reduction (RED) sustainability initiative.

Article 2:Ledue, C., & Ledue, C. (2009, February 3). Patient education reduces readmissions and ER visits, saves money. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/patient-education-reduces-readmissions-and-er-visits-saves-money

Studies show that most of the patients who have explicit knowledge and understanding of the after-hospital care precautions and instructions are less likely to be readmitted in the healthcare facility or even visit the emergency department, unlike those who lack knowledge. Since the readmissions are also costly, the hospitals make sure that the patients have enough experience concerning any type of disease they are suffering from. Then they can be released and go back home with enough information on how to care about their health condition hence saving money. Moreover, the importance of patient education is that it also fastens the healing status of patients since staying in hospitals is a little bit confusing and stressful for patients, which slows their recovery process.

For instance, the Re-Engineered Hospital Discharge Program (RED) is one of the patient educations which utilize the trained nurses to help patients to arrange and plan for their follow-up appointments and be able to understand their medication routine through the use of their personalized booklet with instructions. However, the RED program does not fully accomplish the patient's needs. Still, it reduces healthcare costs by about 70% since most of the patents do not need to visit an emergency department or a community healthcare facility for their diagnosis or health services unless they have a complicated condition (Ledue & Ledue, 2009). Moreover, the RED program faces some challenges, such as financial incentives despite its help in patient safety and cost-benefit because most hospitals do not have a robust financial stand to initiate the program.

Sustainable initiative: https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/patient-education-reduces-readmissions-and-er-visits-saves-money

The article contributes to the Red bag waste reduction initiative by making sure that the patients have an instruction booklet at their home to keep records of their appointments and other healthcare services such as when to take prescribed medicine. The fact that the number of patients in the healthcare facility is reduced means that the patients' records will be stored in the healthcare patient database and do away with the hard copy records. When the hospital saves the patient's information in the database, it means they will only be dealing with paperwork on the admission of patients. Once they have entered the information in the system, the health facility saves on the waste management cost.

Article 3: Patient Education Can Eliminate 3 of Your Biggest Challenges. (2020, April 30). Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://www.healthwise.org/blog/patient-education-helps-challenges.aspx

The United States is one of the countries that pay more for healthcare services when compared to other nations around the globe. Furthermore, most of the citizens in America cannot access or have limited access to the preventive care of health services because they are expensive and they cannot afford the health insurance, and that is why the adoption of the patient education can help the city get any medical assistance they need regarding their health condition. The healthcare cost has become more expensive because most of the hospitals lack enough physicians, and this makes it possible for the patients to receive poor services because the doctors have to overwork themselves to deliver the services. However, with the implementation of patient education, such scenarios cannot happen since the physicians will only be handling complicated diseases in the hospital.

The patient education significantly improves the compliance and persistence of the patients by utilizing medication across the broad range of the disease conditions. From most studies is that the lack of conformity is mostly associated with poor clinical results, which increases the lower quality of life and hospitalization, leading to higher general health costs. Through the implementation of patient education does not mean that the patients at home do not know about the disease severity. Still, the program makes sure that they have an in-depth understanding of their conditions and know how to perform treatments with a lot of confidence, and they can do this outside the medical facility.

Sustainability initiative: https://www.healthwise.org/blog/patient-education-helps-challenges.aspx

The article also contributes a lot towards the Red bag waste reduction since the healthcare marketers are expected to provide materials that are environmentally friendly to both the hospital and home environment. For instance, the Reuse Single-Use Devices (SUD) is one of the recommended strategies by CDC to be performed by healthcare professionals to lower both the cost of healthcare services and also reduce the value of the operation of equipment in the hospitals. When the hospitals start emphasizing the use of SUD and other electronic materials to pass information to patients, it means they will be saving costs on the disposal of waste and spend a few on dome gadgets.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the articles have talked about the far-reaching impacts of patient education on healthcare services costs. The patient education needs to be emphasized at every community hospital to reduce the health care costs since most of the individual cannot afford the expensive health care costs. Patient education has to be implemented at various levels since they also have to correlate with sustainable initiatives such as the Red bag waste reduction because they also reduce the general healthcare costs by a significant margin. Therefore, the hospitals have to be very sensitive when it comes to employment of patient education because it also has to be practiced sustainably.

References

Patient Education Can Eliminate 3 of Your Biggest Challenges. (2020, April 30). Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://www.healthwise.org/blog/patient-education-helps-challenges.aspx

Ledue, C., & Ledue, C. (2009, February 3). Patient education reduces readmissions and ER visits, saves money. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/patient-education-reduces-readmissions-and-er-visits-saves-money

Heath, S. (2017, March 1). Patient Education Reduces Costs, Boosts Asthma Outcomes. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://patientengagementhit.com/news/patient-education-reduces-costs-boosts-asthma-outcomes