In this era of ‘joined up thinking’, ‘joined up government’ and ‘multidisciplinary training’ the concept of ‘blended learning’ is not truly cutting edge stuff, but should perhaps be given consideration when delivering patient education. Blended learning is described as ‘a learning solution that incorporates a mix of on-line and face to face elements’, where busy individuals can choose their time and place to learn and use the more structured face-to-face elements for the more hands on practical learning. Blended Patient Education (BPE) could be described as a behavioural change solution that incorporates a mix of resources, personnel and environments to encourage and establish health benefitting behaviours.
With caries and periodontal disease costing the National Health Service in excess of £2bn per year and prevention making a comeback we might do well to consider ‘blending’ our oral health advice. We know the more often oral health messages are given to the patient using different types of media, the more likely a positive response. But, how often do we utilise the spectrum of health promoting media options in our oral health education messages? How many of us rely upon well rehearsed and to some extent, successful experiences to inform the next generation of our patients? Is this enough or are there other options that might improve the clinical outcome for some?
Malcolm Knowles introduced ‘andragogy’ to the world of education, defining it as ‘the art and science of helping adults learn’. Andragogy is based upon five assumptions about how adults learn and their attitude towards and motivation for learning.
Social networking is means of grouping individuals into specific groups which share the same interests. Social networking is done in person but mostly on-line via social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. If we seek to prevent rather than cure in the 21st century, social networking and multi media education is another way of getting the message out there.
Time and money are often quoted as the reason for compromising on the preventive messages in a busy practice and whilst BPE may not generate income, it would definitely cost no additional surgery time and may improve the clinical outcomes for our patients.
References available on request.
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