GreenField Health, an Internal Medicine Practice in Portland, Oregon, sees wired.MD’s™ streaMed™ Patient Education Solution not only as cutting edge, but also as the future of patient education. President and CEO, Dr. Charles Kilo, tells how the integration of streaMed in his practice has allowed for more consistent patient education, stronger patient/physician relationships, and better use of down time.

Before streaMed, Kilo saw a great need for standardized methodologies and standardized messages within patient education. His practice was working toward a way to customize the information being provided to patients without having to recreate the message for each interaction. For Kilo, streaMed held the answer.

wired.MD's streaMed Patient Education Solution provides computer-based "new media" patient education videos and customized text handouts at the point of care and beyond. streaMed delivers provider-directed, retention-based patient education videos on diagnoses and procedures. streaMed may be used within the exam room, a patient education room, and at the patient's home.

Kilo views the age-old method for patient education as both inefficient and ineffective. “Very little of the educational information is evidence based and/or studied to show some change in behavior. I think we (as most organizations) are providing the information because it feels right and seems like the right thing to do. However, if it is non-standardized and the message is being provided on the spot for each patient, that message is ineffective and usually there is very little take home message in the information provided” says Kilo.

When asked his feelings about the streaMed Patient Education Solution and its ability to work as a Digital Assistant at the point of care, Kilo answered, “It is an important contributor to a complete and effective patient education system. Patients learn from multiple mediums and I think that the streaming video component of streaMed is an excellent and critical piece to the system of the future. Like all good tools, streaMed is only as good as its delivery and the ‘at home’ or ‘out of the office’ component of streaMed makes it simple for patients to access the content provided. We feel that the ‘out of office’ component can extend our care into the patient’s home, which is an added bonus.”

streaMed allows physicians and healthcare organizations to provide their patients with an 8-digit Information Prescription Code that allows the patients to go to their physician's access-secured customized website. The site is customized for the practice or healthcare organization containing their logo, branding elements, pictures and contact information placing the physician in the patient’s home. Once in the site patients can access physician-directed streaming videos, read printed text, access links to nationally accredited healthcare Websites, complete anonymous patient satisfaction surveys as well as email their physicians with questions or concerns they may have (optional). The patient site places the information credibility back with the physician allowing patients to simply access the exact piece of medical information they are looking for from the only person they want to receive it from, their physician.

According to Kilo, "Health care is one of the top reasons people use the Internet. They are using it to find health related information every day. However, a large percentage of health care information on the Web is biased or inaccurate. It is there to sell something or it is someone's opinion. I think more and more people are looking to their physicians to lead them toward reliable information. In my practice, there are only a few sites that I trust, and those are the ones that I want my patients to use. We encourage our patients to be aggressive researchers of their conditions because we feel that a better educated and empowered patient will ultimately manage their own health better. We place them in charge."

Since implementing streaMed into their practice, GreenField Health has noticed a change in the doctor/patient relationship. The patients have been responding positively to the healthcare videos. They like the attention to detail and feel good that the practice is giving them this offering.

The patients view GreenField Health as technologically forward thinking in large part because of streaMed. GreenField Health’s patients have also appreciated their physicians’ recognition that one size does not fit all when it comes to the way people learn and retain medical information. "It is a matter of customizing the content to the individual, and streaMed provides an important contribution to our educational capabilities - there is content that is applicable to nearly every patient we see," says Kilo.

Downtime during any doctor visit may be inevitable; it’s what you do with this time that counts. Kilo has found that “streaMed videos are a great source of information to provide vs. a 20 year old People magazine. It is not filler either. It is applicable information that adds to the visit. 95% of our visits have 1 or more streaMed videos that are applicable to that patient. Some patients have multiple conditions that streaMed has the videos for. We want to have every element of the visit to have a purpose.”

It is true that people learn in different ways and for many, the most comprehensive learning takes place visually. This is what makes streaMed appealing to such a large percentage of the patient population. This tool is also allowing physicians to educate in a more efficient way in that they do not have to give the same speech over and over again. The ease of access to information and the ease of the streaMed device have physician’s turning to it more and more. Kilo agrees that a 5 minute streaMed video would cover 4 to 5 minutes of an educational speech he or a colleague would give to a patient regarding a condition. “For many common conditions such as low back pain where you need to provide a standardized message it is critical to provide a consistent and credible message. The streaMed videos are able to provide that message.” This, Kilo considers to be a direct timesaver for GreenField Health which would equate to a Return On Investment from streaMed.

streaMed is an important tool for physicians in this Internet era. This tool allows physicians to regain information control of how and where their patients receive medical content. Better educated patients means greater compliance equaling lower overall healthcare costs. That combined with the time already saved during each visit means more time for doctors to see other patients or more time to perform other reimbursable tasks.