In most hospitals and healthcare facilities, whiteboards are the central communication conduit for patient information, referred to by providers, nursing staff, patient support caretakers and most importantly, patients themselves. By using an enterprise-wide interactive patient care solution rather than costly manual whiteboards, healthcare facilities can reduce operating expenses and increase the level of patient literacy through a comprehensive digital education content system.

Patient education compliance is vastly improved with multimedia education, reducing readmissions and the associated costs and penalties. More than 125,000 deaths occur each year from cardiovascular and heart conditions alone, and twenty-six percent of those deaths are preventable with educational content and compliance. One in three patients reported that patient education is the most-used service on their in-room television. Patient education completion can be increased by as much as twenty percent with an interactive component.

Reducing LoS and Readmissions

An additional study shows that seventy-five percent of patients using on-demand education felt that condition-specific education provided through their patient room television helped them better understand their health condition. Interactive patient education provides facilities with a way to engage patients in their care plan, set expectations, and increase completion by twenty percent. This has a significant impact on reducing readmissions. In addition, patients can reduce their stay by as much as eight hours or more, and be released as much as three hours sooner with multimedia education assignment.

Often, getting patient educational content to patients consists of printing reams of paper handouts and providing them to patients during their stay and sending additional copies home with them at discharge – which may or may not be read and understood. An integrated interactive whiteboard system provides the ability to prescribe, assign and push educational healthcare content directly to patients. When managed efficiently and with easy access by patients on their in-room devices, digital education has a demonstrable effect on readmissions; a key performance indicator used by CMS to measure (and penalize) healthcare facilities on quality of care.

What isn’t often taken into consideration when considering whether to adopt interactive whiteboards in a healthcare facility is factoring in the cost of all of this printed material. Large hospitals can print as much as eight million pages per year at a cost of $3.8 million. With a centrally managed system, hospitals can realize cost savings reduced by as much as 35-40 percent (or more) in total print volume, with a 30 percent reduction or more in toner and ink costs. That adds up to to a 25-35 percent reduction in externally sourced printing costs across the supply chain.