Patient feedback has led Northern Health to develop a website to allow a new method of understanding between clients and health professionals.
Teach-Back is a communication method used by health professionals to check that they have been understood.
The method involves the professional breaking information down into small parts and checking that the consumer has understood that information by asking them to repeat it.
This allows health professionals to clarify information that has been misunderstood or to provide the information again if it was missed.
The new method being introduced, called Check-Back, allows the consumer to initiate this process themselves.
Allied health research lead, Dr Rebecca Jessup, said patients gave feedback that they wanted to be “more actively involved” in the communication process with health professionals.
“Consumers told us that initiating Teach-Back themselves would increase their ability to act on information and would promote equal partnerships with their health professionals through better two-way conversations,” Dr Jessup said.
“This is in line with the recent evidence that involvement in shared decision-making may be associated with better health.”
Northern Health, in conjunction with Safer Care Victoria, Monash University, Monash Health and Ballarat Health Services, has developed a website that teaches patients to initiate Teach-Back themselves.
The website’s module includes information about Check-Back and how to initiate it with your health professional, as well as a number of videos demonstrating its use.
Details: checkback.org
