Patient-driven Education and Accurate Documentation to Ensure Exceptional Healthcare

Patient-driven EducationEndocrinology medical transcription is a valuable service for endocrinologists who diagnose and treat conditions such as diabetes and thyroid disorders. Accurate transcripts with details of the diagnoses and therapy provided have to be maintained to ensure proper care and follow-up treatment. Among the records maintained would be those pertaining to office visits, SOAP notes, follow-up visits, consultation notes, and evaluations. These transcripts would contain important details such as medical history of the patient, physical examination, diagnostic testing, impression and treatment plan. Endocrinologists treating diabetic patients would maintain records relating to Type 1, Type 2 and gestational diabetes. Many hospitals, individual physicians, physician practices and other providers obtain medical transcription services to ensure that all the health information of their patients are accurately recorded and made accessible any time.

Types 1 and 2 diabetes are chronic medical conditions that usually last a lifetime. The patient is given insulin as part of the treatment. Patients with Type 1 diabetes receive insulin injections and are advised dietary and exercise adherence. Patients with Type 2 diabetes are prescribed tablets, exercise and a special diet though sometimes this group may also receive injections. It is important to treat diabetes because if it is not controlled, it may lead to complications such as hypoglycaemia, ketoacidosis, and non-ketoic hypersosmolar coma. Other concerns include retinal damage, cardiovascular disease, nerve damage, poor wound healing, chronic kidney failure and gangrene on the feet.

Lifestyle counselling is an important part of diabetes treatment. When children are diagnosed with diabetes, their parents have to be given the proper counselling to ensure the wellbeing of the kids. An important question in this regard is how to provide the right recommendations and advice.

Visiting the hospital, consulting the doctor and forgetting half of what was told to us is common problem with many of us. This can happen whether you are a health-literate or whetherand whether you’re a parent dealing with your child’s acute sickness or chronic disorder. you are a parent faced with your child’s chronic disorder or acute sicknessand whether you’re a parent dealing with your child’s acute sickness or chronic disorder.and whether you’re a parent dealing with your child’s acute sickness or chronic disorder.. Research from the University of Pennsylvania, Texas Christian University and University of Texas at Arlington found that for parents who have children with acute sickness or a chronic disorder like Type 1 diabetes, the counselling and communication must be learner-driven and not instructor-driven. This is important for parents who have very low health literacy.

The findings of the research were published in the November issue of the Journal of Health Communication. Health literacy is the capacity to obtain, process and understand the basics of health information. Parents try to keep their children healthy, especially those who have chronic and complex ailments like diabetes Type 1. These parents work with healthcare providers and diabetes educators to provide better care.

The researchers selected 162 parents who had children with Type 1 diabetes and had consulted a diabetes educator at least once in the previous year. The participants completed a survey that looked at measures that included general clarity, explanation of conditions and care, and parents’ concern. A smaller group was interviewed about their perception and needs regarding diabetes education.

From the survey it was clear that each parent wanted to be taught at their own pace. The results of the survey were interesting but surprising to the researchers who found that both sets of parents were frustrated and dissatisfied with the kind of diabetes education they were receiving.

Generally healthcare providers use a lot of medical terms and speak very quickly. But with these patients, they believed that they had delivered the message at an average pace so that each parent could understand well, but this didn’t seem to be working. The findings of the research strongly suggest that healthcare providers should evaluate the healthcare literacy of each parent and then decide the communication methods required. This means that the level of counselling standard should be adjusted according to the healthcare literacy of each parent.

E- Learning tools could be provided to the parents so that they can watch, re-watch and understand various relevant medical aspects during their free time. The e-learning should have visuals and demonstrations that are completely patient-driven. Such measures can have a positive impact on the healthcare system and enable to provide patients better care.

Endocrinologists vested with the responsibility of patient education and lifestyle counselling can consider obtaining endocrinology transcription services to convert their dictated notes into professionally formatted medical reports. Moreover, practicing endocrinologists can utilize the toll free phone-in-dictation facility provided by a medical transcription company to dictate their patients’ medical details, which will be transcribed by medical transcriptionists. With the new EMR requirements, doctors can either make use of the EMR software provided by the transcription company and save on in-house operational costs or request the company to enter the details into their own office EMR through EMR integrated transcription service.

Julie Clements

About Julie Clements

Joined the MOS team in March of 2008. Julie Clements has background in the healthcare staffing arena; as well as 6 years as Director of Sales and Marketing at a 4 star resort. Julie was instrumental in the creation of the medical record review division (and new web site); and has especially grown this division along with data conversion of all kinds.
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