Anne Stuedemann, CPNP, MSN, Orthopedic Surgery, was recently awarded a one-year, $1,000 micro grant from Pediatric Orthopaedic Practitioners Society.
The funding is being used on Anne’s Quality, Safety, Value Improvement (QSVI) project, “Orthopaedic Dynamic Quick Response (QR) Code Development: Quick and Easy Access to Standardized Patient Education and Resources.” The goals are to improve health literacy, transcend language barriers, and reduce the carbon footprint of the Children’s Mercy institution.
As Anne explains, research shows that only 14 percent of verbally delivered medical information is accurately remembered by patients. This low retention rate may lead to miscommunication, patient errors, and safety events.
The Joint Commission recognizes the threat of limited English proficiency, poor health literacy, and cultural barriers to healthcare communication. Advances in information technology (IT) offer opportunities to improve knowledge retention through access to documents, videos, and photographs delivered to smartphones and tablets. Using pictures to communicate medical information increases patient memory by 80 percent.
QR (Quick Response) codes offer the advantage of an efficient connection to encoded URLs to access documents, videos, and photographs. These codes enable ongoing education through continued access to unique patient-centered information by the patient, their family, and the community if desired.
Dynamic multilingual QR codes can also sync with the patient’s preferred language on their smart device. The Department of Orthopaedic Surgery’s project will use dynamic multilingual QR codes for their neuromuscular and adolescent idiopathic scoliosis patients. The primary goals of the project are to transcend language barriers to enhance patient education and to improve health literacy.
The project's shift towards reducing paper usage not only supports environmental sustainability by conserving resources but also adds value by streamlining processes. This move aligns with global efforts to minimize waste and promote eco-friendly business operations.
“Our innovative approach with QR codes will help provide efficient multilingual access to standardized patient education. At Children’s Mercy, we believe that health equity will not be achieved until all members of our health care community include diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) perspectives fundamentally in everyday work activities,” Anne summarizes.
Michon Huston, PA-C, Nicolette Saddler, APRN, FNP-C, CPN, MSN, Katie Carpenter, MSN, CPNP-PC, and Jessica Woods, APRN, all in Orthopaedic Surgery, are co-investigators on the project.