Post-Discharge eLearning Platform for Cardiac Patients: Developing the Format of the Educational Units and Recording the Contents

Abstract

Myocardial infarction patients face an increased risk of cardiovascular problems. This risk can be reduced by adjusting one’s lifestyle. However, once discharged from the hospital and faced with self-care at home the patient faces a loss of adequate information and diminishing motivation with time after infarction the event. There is a gap of two weeks between being released from the hospital and the patient having any chance of joining organised cardiac rehabilitation programmes, if these are organised by the health system at all. Unfortunately, by that time the highest motivation for lifestyle change has already been lost. An eLearning platform has been put forward to bridge this period, however, the content needs to be carefully prepared to educate and motivate the patient and their family. By analysing how health information is acquired over the Internet today, and by applying social-cognitive learning and storytelling into educational videos we developed a format of an effective educational unit. In order to develop an essential set of educational units seven interviews were recorded with members of medical teams and five with patients who had coronary disease, of which two were with their partners who were their informal caregivers. The format of the educational unit was designed as such that it can be viewed in 4-8 minutes and was composed of three videos featuring peer-patients and medical team members. The videos were accompanied by a short text of up to 50 words, illustrations or quiz questions. From the recorded video material 60 educational videos were edited and used to compose 20 educational units for patients with coronary disease. Legal issues regarding Rights of Publishing and General Data Protection Regulation issues were solved and backend data analytics was developed. Thus, the platform was prepared for next step which will be a large random clinical study.