Financing Patient and Family Education at the Hospital Level

摘要

Patient education means clear and complete information exchange between all patients and all staff members during the routine course of hospitalization--when medication is being given, when a new procedure is about to be performed, when the patient is being admitted, or when a patient asks a question. It's important that we learn to analyze the cost of education and communication time and add it to our budget. Once we, as Education Coordinators or Directors of Nursing, figure this out, our next problem is to get hospital administrators involved enough to talk to third-party payers about it. This type of negotiation is believed to be necessary to bring budgets, charges and educational services into perspective with aspects of treatment.