Products for Patient Groups

Create a new/innovative product to educate specific patient groups about their illness and treatment

Every patient is different on a wide variety of characteristics. As such, patients can also differ in health, illness, and health care needs and use. To be able to provide patients with the care they need, it is important to tailor health care to their individual wishes and experience.

During an elective bachelor course called ‘Learning from the patient’, pharmacy students learn about health psychology, health literacy and written/visual health information in order to be able to develop (in a group) a product to inform/educate a specific patient group about their illness and the treatment of the illness. This product idea is brought in by an external client that will use or disseminate the product after it is finalized.

Aims

Create awareness, knowledge about and insight into differences between patients in their capabilities and needs when it comes to health information.

Students ec’s for this assignment

7,5

Teacher effort (hours)

During the course, students attend several lectures about topics such as health psychology, health literacy and (written/visual) health information, as well as lectures by pharmacists who share their experiences in this area. Furthermore, groups working on their assignment are supervised by a teacher.

Final product

After the course, clients receive the final product and can either use it immediately, or can finetune it to their specific wishes.

Assessment criteria

The product is graded by using a short assessment form. Included are: content (correct, clear) of the product, innovative character of the product, applicability (suitability) for the client and attractiveness of the product.

Description of the example

The first course yielded three products: an ‘image story’ (beeldverhaal) specifically for people from West-Africa about hypertension, downloadable from client’s website (client: Pharos (Dutch Centre of Expertise on Health Disparities); a video animation about (use of) asthma medication for adolescents with asthma, to be played in the waiting area of a hospital (client: Emma Children’s Hospital, Amsterdam UMC, Department of Lung Diseases); a narrowcasting for patients about a pharmacy, their services and specifically their care for patients with diabetes and asthma, to be played on all screens in the health care center (client: Apotheek Berlicum).

More information / Contact

Dr. Ellen Koster (e.koster@uu.nl) or drs. Daphne Philbert (d.philbert@uu.nl).