Our Competition

There are many alternative ways to teach patients: pamphlets, printed sheets, videos, web pages, in-person education, etc. There are thousands of publishers of health information, be it developed in-house, sponsored by pharma, available on the web, or provided by other commercial organizations.

Below are the five main questions that should be asked –in our opinion—when searching for quality patient education materials:

Is the content evidence-based?

If the content is not evidence-based, the source should be discarded. This eliminates many websites and publishers. However, there is no lack of evidence-based and peer-reviewed patient education materials. X-Plain is physician-written and peer-reviewed (learn more about our Editorial Department).


Is the material accessible?

Health literacy has finally received the attention it deserves in the last decade. It is estimated that up to 40% of the US population is functionally illiterate or can read at the elementary school level. Since then, respected publishers of patient education started writing simple-to-read materials.

However, we believe that simplifying materials by just writing at the 6th grade level is very mechanistic and inappropriate (particularly that most readability formulas are based on the lengths of sentences and words). Simplification of health education should also include sound pedagogic methods and the ultimate question should be "are patients completing and understanding the provided material?" (learn more about our instructional design philosophy and Suitability Assessment of Materials).


Is the patient education package designed to address your specific need?

The needs for informed consent, discharge instructions, health promotion, patient satisfaction etc., are different and should be addressed by a patient education solution that addresses those specific needs and not by a generic brochure, web page, or system. Our defined products are actually field-tested best practice solutions.


Does the product give you evidence of its usage and effectiveness without taxing your resources?

When compared to many "competing" patient education alternatives, X-Plain is considered a "paradigm shift" in patient education; it saves data about patient education sessions, completion, and patient comprehension. It provides you with metrics about your patient education initiatives so you can determine its effectiveness and ROI (learn more about the type of documentation and metrics we offer).

"We don’t give student drivers their driving licenses without verifying and testing they know how to drive. A car accident can kill; so do mismanaged chronic diseases and non-compliance with post-op instructions. Why should we do less with patient education? Quality health care should include verifying understanding through interactive questions after didactic patient-paced education has taken place."
Moe Ajam, Ph.D.

Is the product cost efficient? Can you justify its costs?

Healthcare administrators often ask, "What is the ROI (return on investment)?" How do you answer this question when patient education is not a service you can directly bill for?

Nurses and educators know that up to 50% of what healthcare providers do is inform, guide, and share decisions. Quality healthcare is at the core of their missions, and the benefits of patient education for improving health care quality are well researched and documented. The ROI question should be restated to, "How do I know our patient education initiatives are being implemented and how do I verify that the health information and instructions we give to patients are being read, understood, and complied with?"

The Patient Education Institute makes answering this question easier by providing data about what patients say about your services, their completion of the health information you give them, their comprehension, and their compliance.