In Touch newsletter: May 2015

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Vimy Barnard-Roberts, a nurse practitioner in the Heart and Vascular Program, uses the Teach-Back Method to instruct David Martin Watson about managing heart failure. (Photo by Katie Cooper, Medical Media Centre)

Loud and clear: Teach-Back enriches nurse-patient communication By James Wysotski

increase knowledge level and retention.

When research shows patients immediately forget 40 to 80 per cent of medical information they hear, and nearly half of what they do retain is inaccurate, better methods of communicating are required. Three nurse practitioners at St. Michael’s think the Teach-Back Method is the solution.

“The purpose of it is to validate patients’ understanding,” said Vimy BarnardRoberts, a nurse practitioner in the Heart and Vascular Program of St. Michael’s Hospital. It confirms “they truly understand what the content or the education point is.”

Teach-Back is a health literacy tool some nurses use to teach a skill or present potentially complex medical information to patients by breaking it down into simple pieces and then having patients repeat back in their own words what they just learned. It can be individualized and research has shown Teach-Back to Printed on 100 per cent recycled paper

When dealing with information about medications or when patients should seek medical attention, confirming comprehension has the potential to improve patient safety.

Nurses connect the dots between data and better patient care By Emily Holton

Maria Laylo, a nurse in Hematology/ Oncology, was in her first year of nursing when her manager mentioned a research opportunity through St. Michael’s nursing research program. “I had never done research or quality improvement before, so I volunteered,” said Laylo. “It looked like a good opportunity for a new nurse like me to learn and make a change in our unit.”

Barnard-Roberts and two other nurse practitioners in her program, Ada Andrade

The Knowledge Translation of Performance Data for Frontline Nurses and Leaders Project (known as PERFORM KT) connects frontline nurses with research mentors

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Continued on page 4 MAY 2015 | IN TOUCH | 1


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