When you’re speaking to patients, do you ever feel like you’re talking to a brick wall? How can you make sure your messages resonate with patients? When we design videos, we take best practices for communication into account. Here are some of our favorite strategies that you can use to maximize your messages’ impact.
- Customize to your patient’s situation — without getting too technical. It’s tough to strike the balance between using simple language that patients can understand and covering all the essential information. Oversimplifying your message might brush over specific details unique to each patient — details that are necessary for them to make informed health decisions. On the other hand, using complex sentence structures and technical terminology can hinder patient understanding. We suggest using the teach-back method to assess whether patients are understanding and how well you’re striking the balance.
- Ensure cultural relevance. When people from the intended audience are depicted in patient education materials, the message is more culturally relevant and meaningful for the audience. A great way to honor Black History Month next month would be to assess whether your educational materials are inclusive and represent a variety of ethnicities. We’ve been making efforts to promote diversity in our videos to make messages resonate with all of our customers’ patients.
- Communicate messages through multiple venues. Some educators who are trying to engage students more effectively are using a strategy called Universal Design for Learning. One of the key principles is to provide multiple means of representation and engagement when communicating ideas to engage different types of learning styles. By offering options, you can make your messages accessible to everyone and increase patients’ likelihood of engagement.
See these practices in action with Rendia’s latest content, which can help your messages resonate with patients.
Get the scoop on getting scoped
Do your pediatric patients (and their parents) get nervous at the thought of a tube going up their nose? Just in time for Kids ENT Health Month in February, you can ease their worries with our latest video, “Getting Scoped: What to Expect.” We give kids and parents the full scoop on what happens during the procedure in a calming and reassuring tone.
We are grateful to Dr. Carol MacArthur of Oregon Health & Science University for suggesting this important topic to us.
We recommend: sharing with patients before their procedure in the office, or emailing ahead of time
Be organ-ized
Knowing basic anatomy helps your patients understand their health. Why not review some basic organ shapes while they wait during their visit with, “Trivia: Name the Organ”?
Best for: adding to your waiting room playlist or sharing on social media
Get some shut eye
Nocturnal lagophthalmos shares similar symptoms to dry eye, such as redness and foreign body sensation. Now you can use our “Nocturnal Lagophthalmos” video to explain to patients that their eye discomfort may actually be caused by their eyelids not closing completely during sleep. We appreciate the suggestion for this topic by Dr. Walter Egenmaier of EyeCare Consultants.
We suggest: adding to your website, emailing, or sharing on social media
Lighten up your waiting room
…with our latest anatomy trivia vignette, “Trivia: Heaviest Organ.”
Best for: adding to your waiting room playlist or sharing on social media
The sound of music
From time to time, we get questions about why some of our vignettes are silent. We know while some of our customers prefer a silent waiting room environment; others enjoy having sound. Now that our waiting room solution allows customers to play our videos on mute, we’ve added sound back into our vignettes! Here’s a sample of some of our waiting room content that customers know and love, now with sound.
Best for: your waiting room or on idle screens in your practice
Want to see our latest content? Be sure to go to the New Releases section of the Rendia Library or take a trial today.