Patient education is the process by which health professionals and others impart information to patients that will alter their health behaviors or improve their health status.http://odphp.osophs.dhhs.gov/pubs/GUIDECPS/text/iv_edu.txt Education providers may include: physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

s, pharmacist

Pharmacist

Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...

s, registered dietitians, nurses, hospital discharge planners, medical social workers, psychologist

Psychologist

Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...

s, disease or disability advocacy groups, special interest groups, and pharmaceutical companies

Pharmaceutical company

The pharmaceutical industry develops, produces, and markets drugs licensed for use as medications. Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to deal in generic and/or brand medications and medical devices...

.

Health education

Health education

Health education is the profession of educating people about health. Areas within this profession encompass environmental health, physical health, social health, emotional health, intellectual health, and spiritual health...

 is also a tool used by managed care

Managed care

...intended to reduce unnecessary health care costs through a variety of mechanisms, including: economic incentives for physicians and patients to select less costly forms of care; programs for reviewing the medical necessity of specific services; increased beneficiary cost sharing; controls on...

 plans, and may include both general preventive

Preventive medicine

Preventive medicine or preventive care refers to measures taken to prevent diseases, rather than curing them or treating their symptoms...

 education or health promotion

Health promotion

Health promotion has been defined by the World Health Organization's 2005 Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion in a Globalized World as "the process of enabling people to increase control over their health and its determinants, and thereby improve their health"...

 and disease or condition specific education.

Important elements of patient education are skill building and responsibility: patients need to know when, how, and why they need to make a lifestyle change. Group effort is equally important: each member of the patient’s health care team needs to be involved.

The value of patient education can be summarised as follows:

• Improved understanding of medical condition, diagnosis, disease, or disability
• Improved understanding of methods and means to manage multiple aspects of medical condition.
• Improved self advocacy in deciding to act both independently from medical providers and in interdependence with them.
• Increased Compliance – Effective communication and patient education increases patient motivation to comply.
• Patient Outcomes – Patients more likely to respond well to their treatment plan – fewer complications.
• Informed Consent – Patients feel you’ve provided the information they need.
• Utilization – More effective use of medical services – fewer unnecessary phone calls and visits.
• Satisfaction and referrals – Patients more likely to stay with your practice and refer other patients.
• Risk Management - Lower risk of malpractice when patients have realistic expectations.

See also

• Compliance (medicine)
  Compliance (medicine)
  In medicine, compliance describes the degree to which a patient correctly follows medical advice...
  
  
• Managed care
  Managed care
  ...intended to reduce unnecessary health care costs through a variety of mechanisms, including: economic incentives for physicians and patients to select less costly forms of care; programs for reviewing the medical necessity of specific services; increased beneficiary cost sharing; controls on...
  
  
• Green prescription
  Green prescription
  A green prescription is a referral given by a doctor or nurse to a patient, with exercise and lifestyle goals written on them.The term, used by health practitioners in New Zealand draws parallel to the usual prescriptions given to patients for medications, and emphasises the importance of exercise...
  
  
• Medical writing
  Medical writing
  Medical writing is the activity of producing scientific documentation by a specialized writer. The medical writer typically is not one of the scientists or doctors who performed the research....
  
  
• Orem model of nursing
  Orem model of nursing
  The self-care deficit nursing theory is a grand nursing theory that was developed between 1959 and 2001 by Dorothea Orem. It is also known as the Orem model of nursing...
  
  
• List of patient education software