Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

The purpose of this project is to develop, with the support of patient partners and health system decision-makers, a better understanding of the health research landscape around patient education, with a particular focus on the use of health information technology. Current practices around medication awareness and education regarding clinical procedures are inconsistent. The majority of patient education is delivered in person by nurses, pharmacists, and/or physicians; however, this is a time intensive process and full workloads often negatively impact the ability of clinical staff to convey both fulsome and consistent information. This results in a poor experience for both clinicians and patients and can lead to potentially harmful outcomes. One potential solution to this problem is to have user-friendly, accessible technology available to all inpatients at the bedside for the purpose of education and information delivery. Island Health is currently considering the installation of tablet computers at the bedside of patients throughout Victoria General Hospital (VGH); this presents an ideal opportunity for us to collaborate with patient partners in designing the functionality and interface of the tool, as well as evaluating meaningful patient-reported experience measures (PREMS) and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMS), as defined by patients. We therefore propose to hold a series of planning meetings to understand the barriers and facilitators to use and effectiveness of a visual education aid in tablet form, in the context of inpatient care at VGH. In addition, we will seek to understand which patient-reported outcome and experience measures will be important to measure as Island Health moves forward with HIT implementation. All activities will be grounded in principles of mutual respect, co-building, support, and inclusiveness, with an additional focus on capacity-building through multidisciplinary collaboration between stakeholders.