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Methods
Methods
How the Kit Is Used:
Classic approaches to teaching patients in a typical inpatient setting is based on a more paternalistic model of care where the nurse provides and reviews information with the patient. In such models, the patient is then expected to repeat back their understanding of the information. Outcomes of such education are vague. It is unclear as well as not measureable as to how this information is absorbed and then utilized post discharge.
Alternatively, the self care model of education is very different than the models we typically use in health care. The self care kits have been designed to be very user friendly, building on adult learning principles, and are essentially self-directed. Rather than "teaching the patients to use the kits", the kits are introduced early in the admission process. The patient is oriented to the elements of the kits as part of the daily care routine. The learning process reinforces how the patient self manages using the tools contained within the kit, adopting each tool in the kit at their own pace. The time it takes to teach the patients is minimal as the tools are incorporated and adopted as part of the daily plan of care. For example, weighing the patient is done by having the patient taking the scale out of of the kit (which he will eventually take home with him) and weighing himself with the assistance of the nurse. He then records the weight in his personal diary(in the kit) as the nurse enters the information in the patients official medical record. Looking at trends and changes over the course of the hospitalization is an activity that the nurse and the patient do together in order to model the expectation that this is the way the patient will carry out this activity when he returns home.
Nancy M. Valentine, RN, PhD, MPH, FAAN, FNAP
Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer
Main Line Health
