Good to Great: Make Your Patient Education Handout Standout

Evidence suggests that patients forget between 40-80% of what a provider has said by the end of the visit, and almost half of what they remember is WRONG (Kessels, 2003)! One way to help patients accurately remember the most vital information is to use patient education handouts…but are they really all that educational?

Reference: Kessels R. P. (2003). Patients’ memory for medical information. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 96(5), 219-222.

Learning Outcomes:

• Discuss at least 4 attributes of a well-designed patient handout
• Identify at least 3 resources to locate patient handouts
• Evaluate the readability of a patient handout
• Discuss how to modify handouts to increase readability

Facilitated by:

Ruth Harris, MLIS, MSHS | Education Services Librarian