UNC Trauma Program: UNC Trauma Program: Patient Education and Injury Prevention Patient Education and Injury Prevention through Serious Gamesthrough Serious Games

Project ProposalHelp to Revolutionize Patient Education- Really!!

Critical discharge teaching, especially in busy emergency settings are often hurriedly delivered to patients who are medicated and exhausted families. The instructions, usually provided in hardcopy with single color text, no pictures, and difficult to comprehend for those with lower levels of health literacy unsurprisingly end up on the floor board of the car never read by the patient or family.

Compliance with discharge instructions have been gaining greater attention due to disincentives by CMS against hospital readmissions and suboptimal patient outcomes. Despite these clear deficiencies, there has been no wide-spread changes in the way discharge information is delivered.

This project calls for the development of an i-pad or tablet-compatible application capable of displaying discharge instructions as text, multi-media, and simple flash games to improve comprehension, retention, compliance and overall improved patient outcomes.

Additionally, the application can provide high-quality and easily tailored education bundles that can be delivered more consistently across entire hospital systems or trauma regions. Though this application cannot replace effective teaching from nurses and physicians, it can improve understanding, efficiency, compliance, and overall quality of patient teaching.

Discharge Instructions and Serious Games

• Instructions shown in color• Diagrams and movies capable of

communicating complex medical information• Animated and interactive graphics• Use of relevant short movies• List of links to internet heath resources• Use of interactive questions to verify

understanding• Use of interactive gaming technology to

teach pediatrics and adults• Exportable / accessible on mobile devices• Future applications:

o Link to personal health portal which tracks performance on games and other interactive programs

o Links to translator services capable of video chat and transcription of written instructions