Assessing Multidimensional Outcomes in a Cancer Patient Education Program of a Teaching Hospital

• In Event: The Parker Hotel Roundtable 2
  In Roundtable Session: Approaches and Issues in Assessing Outcomes of Training/Education Programs: A Healthcare Education Perspective

Abstract

Despite growing demands in scaling up education of the healthcare professions to meet changing societal needs, there are gaps among clinician-educators in practicing the multidimensional assessments of education integrated into patient care (WHO, 2012). This paper provides a practical model that illustrates how selected outcomes, including patient behaviors and health status, were monitored.
Many head and neck cancer patients have jaw and swallowing problems. Learning and doing proper and routine exercise is important in their recovery. Delivering quality teaching, that promotes patient engagement in actions, does matter to optimal patient care. The research study is to determine whether a novel model of patient education offering animation videos is beneficial, especially in promoting patient exercise behavior and health outcomes. We tested the use of two instructional animation videos, specifically designed to improve the quality of teaching during patient-care encounters, and the quality of learning support in patient exercise actions at home.

The randomized control trial (IRB00071792, CRMS-63146) was compared the effectiveness of three instructional designs integrated into ambulatory care patient encounters. By Kirkpatrick’s four evaluation levels, we monitored the patterns of outcomes, including perceived satisfaction (reaction level), knowledge tests of exercise methods (learning level), exercise time and frequency (behavior level), oral aperture, clinical functional oral intake (result level). The audience will appraise the usefulness of the evaluation metrics, demonstrating how specific indicators were measured in each of targeted outcome levels. It will facilitate the discussions of applicability in evaluating different contexts of education among professions.

We will report the significantly emerged patterns monitored a year-long follow-up of 22 oropharyngeal cancer patients in a large tertiary hospital. The evidence is collected as a component effort of the Patient Education and Communication Enhancement (PEACE) 2016 initiative. It supported multi-disciplinary strategic collaborations through this educational innovation project aimed to improve patient-centered care and outcomes in the Johns Hopkins Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery. We will discuss our lessons learned in leading the planning and implementing the collaborative innovation.

Acknowledgement
The project was funded by the Johns Hopkins University Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery (JHU OHNS); HealthBreeze, Inc., provider the animation education technology models as designed for the study; and Human Resource Development Enterprises, supporter of analytic resources dedicated for the project.

Authors

• Eun Mi Park, University of South Florida Morsani

• Marrisa Simpson