If there is ever any area of literature that, in general, needs some serious help it’s patient literature. Companies, hospitals, and even physicians all work hard to create materials aimed at helping their patients learn about therapies, treatments, options, drugs, and conditions and most of this stuff goes unread or misunderstood.
That’s a shame, since so many patients need to know more about their healthcare. So here are 10 tips to help you create useful patient materials.
1. Before you embark on creating your patient brochures, work out a serious plan as to how you intend for this material to wind up in the hands of patients. If you’re a doctor, this is easy; you can hand them the literature in your office. But if you’re a medical company, just exactly how do you envision getting the literature out of your warehouse and into the hands of patients? (Here’s a hint: don’t count on the chain that goes rep-doctor-patient.) If you want to reach patients, you should post content online or figure out a way that folks can order it directly from you.
2. Before you start to write or design your patient material, you need to know what patients are really concerned about. This is not necessarily what you think they ought to be concerned about. In order to do this well, you should form a focus group of patients. Fortunately, you can do this for no money at all by joining some patient forums and lurking or, better yet, asking questions. You can even post surveys and get people to submit information to you. The point is, you need to address actual concerns, not what you think people should care about.
3. Write the materials before you design them. I don’t know how many people come to me and specify the type of brochure they want (trifold, full color, folder with a tab, somebody even specified to me once they wanted a 17-page brochure which should make you smile because that’s a tactical impossibility) before they even know what they want to say. The order of creation goes: writing then designing. If you design first and then create content to fill up empty space you’re are building a fluff piece. If you figure out what you have to say and then design it, you are creating genuine content.
4. Imagine a target demographic. Don’t just say that the average person who might need this therapy is a 50-year-old female. Find a stock photo (or the photo of a friend) and give your demographic a name and some back story. And then write the brochure to her. You need to make your patient material “talk to” a person and explain the condition and possible treatment options.
5. Explain medical words but do not shy away from using them. You don’t want to use jargon but you should realize that when a person is diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome, they tend to remember the name and acronym. If this makes you nervous, add a mini-glossary to the back of your patient materials or put a tab on your website.
6. Anticipate the kind of questions patients will ask. Even as you write, imagine what kind of questions will pop into the head of your reader and answer them in the next sentence. For instance, if you write, “After bariatric surgery and a dramatic weight loss, some people have loose and sagging skin.” Your reader is going to say, “Wow, if I get bariatric surgery and then have a dramatic weight loss, what will I do about all that loose and sagging skin?” So your next sentence should be. “There may be ways to remove excess skin surgically; you should talk to your doctor about this option.”
7. Illustrate your patient materials. Patient materials work best with illustrations rather than photos. If you need to show anatomy or how a device works, line drawings can be far easier to grasp than even photographs. Furthermore, illustrations are generally perceived as less threatening than photos, which can be confusing or even upsetting. You can also draw lifestyle scenes or other drawings. For kids, this can have a comic-book feel to it. For older patients, drawings or sketches work well. These have a more soothing feel to them.
8. Make sure you do not say too much in the patient materials. Novice writers should review what claims they can make about a product or service. The best rule of thumb to remember is that medicine is complicated because people are unique. The perfect therapy for Mrs. A may not work for Mr. B., even though A and B have the exact same condition. So be sure you don’t promise that your therapy will work in everybody and keep reminding your readers to talk to their doctor about their specific case.
9. While patient materials probably need to go through your review committee (if you’re a medical manufacturer) do not let your review company destroy them. For some reason, most reviewers see themselves as great patient educators and will insist you make crazy changes. I once wrote a patient presentation where I talked about the people who had undergone a certain procedure (in the past) as “people.” The nurse-reviewer who looked over the materials insisted that I call all such individuals “patients.” We had a long discussion where I proposed that most human beings do not really think of themselves as patients just because they had an operation a few years ago. However, she was a nurse and to a nurse, people are patients. Take the input of your reviewers seriously but make good common sense judgments.
10. Make sure that your patients have a way to reach you, your business, or a patient representative. Many patients may want to order more copies of your patient materials, ask questions, get further information, or want to know where to find a doctor. It is only sensible if you provide this, even if all you do is outsource a help-desk service.
