What makes a good patient communication whiteboard?

Patient Room Whiteboards and Patient Communication Whiteboards offer a vast improvement in communication over the old chart on a clip-board at the end of the bed which primarily served doctors and nurses only. 

An effective board will consider the information needs of the various users - Nurses, Doctors and Specialists, the Patient and Patient Visitors.  Each facility will have differing data and instructional needs so the boards need to be customized for each facility's needs.

For the Patient and Visitors, medical jargon should be minimized and replaced with graphics like the Pain Scale Face graphic commonly used on most patient whiteboards. 

Now more than ever, it's important for Patients to have an Advocate that works independently outside of the care giving facility. This puts them in an ideal position to ensure both the Patient and the care givers are following the instructions important to their care. The Advocates can also notice changes in the Patients behavior or condition that the care givers are not privy to as they attend to other patients.

An effective Patient Room Whiteboard will have the instructions, restrictions, comments and other important information in an easy to understand format as well as contact information for staff and management. A proper Patient Room Whiteboard delivers the critical information to everyone involved in the Patients care in a simple and streamlined fashion.