An Evaluation of Current CCTV Usage To Support Patient Health Education Activities at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Brecksville Division.

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) is a promising technology used by many medical centers to support health education activities for patients and their families. It may provide one method of reaching multiple patients at various times and locations, providing consistent, easily repeated information in a low stress manner, but it is unclear how much of the daily patient health education programming is actually useful to clinical staff on the wards and clinics. A two-part survey of all nurse managers (N=12) was used to gather information for this study. The purpose was to find how CCTV patient health education programs are utilized by nursing staff on the wards. The phase one interview was designed to answer questions concerning most often viewed health topics, viewing patterns, and documentation. Phase two of the survey answers questions concerning best times of day to supplement planned health education activities, health topics to be addressed, video on demand usefulness, and the addition of non-health programming. Phase one shows that CCTV is underutilized. Phase two points out inadequacies of the system and can be used as a guide to system improvement. CCTV is not, in its present state, the useful tool that a busy healthcare professional needs to help provide health education to patients. The questionnaires, consent forms, and CCTV schedule are appended. (Contains 21 references, 4 figures, and 3 tables.) (Author/MES)