We do have a number of critical fields in healthcare, particularly in ophthalmology, such as cataract surgery, especially the premium IOL segment, glaucoma in the new MIGS technologies sector, AMD, and similar fields, where industry and doctors are trying to reach the patient with the new exciting technologies, which may significantly improve patient's quality of life. But these attempts are not efficient enough, and all we are suffering.
We are trying to educate doctors, staff, and patients, but still, the technology penetration rate is way lower than we may expect. Why? Let's dig deeper and try to find an answer.
What is the difference between information and knowledge? And how is the education process related to this?
This is a core basis for building an effective patient education process.
Education might be either inspired from inside of the person or forced from outside. In the patient education process, we shall stick to the inspiring model rather than forced one, as patient in vast majority of cases is keen to know.
What is the information?
The information itself is the set of certain data, claims, and messages. It might be "true" which reflects the real things in the world or "false" which reflects something which is not reflecting the real world conditions. Such as the Sun is a star that flies around the Earth. What is correct in that sentence?
But, when it comes to a human, the information is something that a particular person knows and believes that it is true. It is a first and important point.
What is the knowledge?
Knowledge is the ability to use information to achieve particular goals, in other words, to make the right decisions. What are the goals? It depends on particular needs, however when it comes to human, to personality, the goals in many cases might be not really conscious.
If a person does not really recognise their real desires and feelings, it gives wrong goals perception, and thus, decisions in some cases might be wrong as they lead to goals, which do not really matter, and thus will lead to further dissatisfaction.
What is the education?
The education is a process of giving a person certain information plus giving an understanding of how to use the information. Other words, it is the way to teach person to think, solve the problems and achieve the goals.
Why do we think that patients whom we want to educate are really willing to be educated?
Every patient want to have a solution, to find the best option for his health issue, which will be optimally fitted to his personal needs, will eliminate the risks and will increase his/her quality of life to the maximum of the possible.
They want a personal approach and suffer from a lack of it, and in the vast majority of cases limitation of chair time and our understanding of what really matters for that particular person makes this mission impossible.
We are trying to create an ideal patient education tool. It is great approach, but it does not work now. We have tons of videos, articles, and companies creating branded animations and videos, but the conversion rate to great new technologies is not increasing significantly.
What is wrong with the patient education approach? Mainly, we are simply giving the information, expecting that the information will "educate" the patient to understand and make an informative decision, ideally willing to buy or select a certain technology we are offering. And, as I said earlier - it works in a limited amount of cases. Why?
In the case of adult patients it does not work, as we are missing the
knowledge about the person of what he/she knows and believes about anatomy, medicine, physics, etc..
if there is a real personal intention to learn exist, rather than simply solve the problem in a safe and efficient way
knowledge of personal fears and concerns, which is important for the patient, and where he or she needs more knowledge (not information!) to take well-considered decision.
Therefore, our standard way of patient communication and education is something that reached its bottleneck, and I strongly believe it is something that limits premium IOL use, as the cost vs value equation could not be solved efficiently in current conditions.
Adding here an increasing volume of fake, inaccurate information makes this problem more complicated.
My years of experience in patient direct communication and social media big data analysis gave me number of valuable insights on how to approach a patient in a personalised way, in order to help them to understand own concerns, get the relevent knowledge and be educated to perceive a real value of premium IOL in every particular case.
A further step is a new approach implementation on the IOL-adviser platform to increase patient awareness and willingness to have particular IOLs. I believe those who will implement this approach will win significantly in the coming years, as private sector, personalised solutions and new technologies is something what drives our ophthalmic industry and entire world.
Stay tuned!
Oleksii Sologub
MSc, LLB, SE MBA
Entrepreneur | Board Member & Strategic Business Consultant in Ophthalmology
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