U5A1

Patient Education Sheet  

This assignment consists of two important techniques needed to ensure patient safety and quality outcomes related to pharmacological therapies. 
For this assignment, assume your supervisor has asked you to develop a patient education tool for new “medication starts” in your current area of practice. You will complete a literature search in order to discover current information (less than 5 years old) on the medication. This information will then be utilized to prepare a single-page, evidence-based teaching tool that highlights patient safety. In the second part of the assignment, you will describe the process of creating the tool, based on your findings, in a short, scholarly report.  Instructions:  

Part 1: Patient Education Sheet 
•Create a patient education sheet. You can either choose an idea from below or choose your own topic:  ◦Antibiotics (Amoxil/Amoxicillin) for pediatric ear infections. 
◦Statin therapy (Zocor/Simvastatin) for a newly diagnosed patient with hypercholesterolemia. 
◦Antihypertensive (ACE Inhibitors/Lisinopril/Zestril) for a patient who was discovered to have hypertension at a work health screening.
 ◦Drugs for treating gastric acidity: Proton pump inhibitors/antacids/H2 blockers for a patient complaining of chronic indigestion and heart burn. 
◦Ear drops or eye drops for an elderly patient. 
◦Any newly released medication for a patient in your typical practice (can be a new drug for diabetes, hypertension, or arthritis; or a new antibiotic).  
•Research the medication you have chosen and determine what information needs to be included on a patient education sheet. As you are aware, different drugs have different safety factors that have to be discussed to increase compliance and patient safety.  
◦What information does the patient or caretaker of a patient need to know? 
◦Choose the categories that you feel are the most important to highlight for your patients (remember that you are creating a single-page education sheet.)  
◾Limit yourself to 3–5 categories to improve patient understanding. Examples of categories could include, but are not limited to, common indications, side effects, questions to ask your doctor, contraindications, and drug storage and disposal. 
◾Use pictures that help reinforce education.   
•Attach the patient education sheet as an appendix to your paper or attach it as a separate document. 

 Part 2: Justification of Information 

•Justify why you decided to highlight your specific educational topics. 
•Describe your chosen categories and explain why you felt these were key issues for patient safety. 
•Discuss any consideration to the patient’s cultural needs that were incorporated into the design of the patient education sheet. 
•Explain why you feel those format or design elements were important.  Additional Requirements 
•Length of patient education sheet: 1 page. 
•Length of justification paper: 2–3 pages. 
•References: Support your decisions with references to this week’s readings and other current (less than 5 years old) peer-reviewed journal articles and evidence-based materials. Demonstrate your understanding of the relationship between patient safety, quality outcomes, and pharmacology. 
•Formatting: Follow proper APA style and formatting.