The rising healthcare costs have led to increasing demand for patient education that helps individuals better understand their health conditions and make informed decisions about their treatment plans. However, access to quality medical information is often a challenge for patients, particularly those who have limited healthcare literacy levels. This is where Learning Management Systems (LMS) come into play.
An LMS platform helps streamline the process of delivering educational content, making it easier for healthcare providers to create and distribute material tailored to their patient’s needs. In this article, we explore how LMS solutions like Healthstream Learning Center can support patient education objectives and how they bridge the gap in healthcare literacy.
What Is An LMS?
An LMS is a digital system that offers organizations a way of managing all aspects of training programs or eLearning courses. These systems typically provide tools like course authoring, testing assignments, or assessments. An ideal LMS should be easily accessible and user-friendly.
What are the benefits of using an LMS Platform for Patient Education?
There are many advantages of using an LMS platform to educate patients:
- Improved Accessibility
An essential benefit of using an LMS platform in patient education is improving accessibility to learning materials. Traditional methods such as printed brochures or flyers are useful as educational resources but limit accessibility according to geography and time since materials need delivery across channels. LMS platforms solve this issue by making learning material accessible via emails, social media networks, and more.
- Flexibility
Leveraging technologies like mobile phones allows patients who lack access to desktops/laptop computers to also learn. This also benefits underserved rural areas, enabling them to learn by accessing educative content at any time, according to their convenience.
- Personalization
Individual learners exhibit different levels of difficulty while undertaking classroom-structured initiatives or online eLearning courses. Personalized learning plans on Learner Management System platforms allow educators to track progress toward set objectives and reassign topics based on rankings calculated by algorithms that are part of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
- Caregiver/Instructor Support
Caregivers play a massive role in patients’ recovery process, and they require ongoing support to help their loved ones achieve treatment objectives. These medical attendants register with LMS platforms to offer assistance in patient monitoring via teleconferencing or even checking progress reports initiated by patients online.
- Bridging Healthcare Literacy Gap
With many patients relying on hearsay, there exists information asymmetry wherein some foundations release tips that may be too complicated for the untrained mind. Such instances are commonly seen when discussing topics like health insurance coverage and drug prescriptions, among other things. An LMS can boost healthcare literacy levels by providing credible content for health education, enabling interested individuals, patients, or caregivers to easily access learning material through connected devices and learn from authoritative sources.
What features should an ideal LMS Platform have?
The following are some of the must-have features of an ideal LMS platform:
- User Interface
An ideal LMS platform should possess an excellent user interface, meaning its easy-to-use UI requires minimal navigational effort.
- Content Authoring Tools
The course authoring tool feature simplifies educators’ workloads through drag-and-drop interfaces and multimedia upload capabilities. These allow instructors to easily create eLearning courses without requiring any additional technical know-how.
- Analytics
The analytics section provides both learner-level/objective-based and activity-level analytics, hence monitoring learners’ activities over time.
- Multiple Device Compatibility
Favorable conditions for accessing digital platforms can differ according to geography, weather patterns, and even fluctuations in average income in an area. Therefore, the ideal LMS solution should be compatible with as many smart-device platforms as possible (e.g., iOS or Android-powered smartphones/tablets), irrespective of screen dimensions.
- Security Protocols
An ideal Learner Management System solution must rely on industry-standard security protocols that safeguard Personal Identifiable Information(PII). Veterans among SaaS providers often go so far as to guarantee that data breaches aren’t widespread.
Conclusion
Learner Management System (LMS) solutions offer endless technological possibilities for streamlining healthcare education. They also help bridge healthcare literacy deficits, as indicated by research carried out in the United States. Benefits that can be reaped from utilizing an LMS for patient education programs include improved accessibility, flexibility, caregiver support, and, most importantly, bridging the healthcare literacy gap. These benefits, coupled with easy-to-use features, advanced analytics, and security controls, make it a must-have in modern medical practice.