The Bowling Green Medical Center has achieved a reduction in diabetes complications by using TVs in the rooms to train and educate patients.
Bowling Green Medical Center is an acute care facility with 337 beds and the flagship hospital of the Med Center Health, a health care system serving a region of 12 counties in central-southern Kentucky.
The hospital implemented TeleHealth Services’ SmarTigr interactive TV system in January 2017. This system has been integrated into the hospital’s electronic medical records where, through a dashboard, clinicians and nurses can learn about the access and playback of videos that are shown on in-room televisions.
The system has been equipped with an extensive library of educational videos, some of which have been produced in-house. The videos mainly serve to complement the teaching given by doctors and have proven to be more effective than verbal instruction alone or the use of printed material, especially in patients with low health literacy.
Clinicians assign specific training to each patient and launch on-demand videos through the StaffConnect application. Patients are provided with a video prescription card with simple instructions to find their assigned videos and watch them on their in-room TVs.
In addition to using the SmarTigr system for on-demand video, the hospital has also developed a series of educational campaigns specifically for diabetes. The video system is used to facilitate patients’ rest and relaxation during their stay and decrease anxiety using TeleHealth’s C.A.R.E. channel guided images.
Since the implementation of the SmarTigr system, video-on-demand usage has increased steadily over time, with an average of 1,000 views per month. Thanks to the video system, the percentage of patients who had an explanation for the therapy has improved by 6.9%, as has the number of patients claiming to have understood the treatment to be followed upon discharge by 16.3%.
Renal and diabetic complications decreased by 15% from 2017 to 2018. Over the same period, the rate of hospital readmission decreased by 3%.
Inpatients spend a lot of time in hospital watching TV. From a simple pastime, television can become a powerful tool for patient education, thus increasing the patient’s awareness of the importance of observing a correct lifestyle and following the therapy assigned to him/h
Digital-health 