Q.: What is Meducation?
A.: Meducation is a Web-based application designed to help every pharmacist, physician, and nurse communicate medication instructions to their patients regardless of the patient's ability to speak English.
Q.: How is Meducation different than MedWizard?
A.: Based initally on the MedWizard concept, Meducation includes many additional features. Developed in collaboration with pharmacists, physicians, and nurses, Meducation incoporates a database of the top 400 medications to quickly generate patient instructions in a few seconds. The patient instructions can be printed both in the patient's language and English and given to each patient. Each medication instruction sheet contains a bar code that can be scanned at any counseling station in the drug store or at the physician's office. Meducation verbally speaks the instruction to the patient in their language and visually demonstrates how to take the medication properly. The patient or the caretaker can review the instructions at any time by entering the bar code identifier at our Meducation website.
Q.: How is Meducation different than the translated labels on medication bottles?
A.: Unlike most translated labels, Meducation can be used to provide more detailed information about the medication in both English and the patient's language. In addition, the patient instruction sheet can be used at the Meducation website to speak the instructions to the patient (to address potential illiteracy) and visually demonstrate associated techniques for using the medications properly, if any.
Q.: What languages are available?
A.: The initial public release will be available in English, Spanish, Korean, Mandarin, Arabic, and Russian. Additional languages will be supported as quickly as possible based on market needs.
Q.: What if my patient is deaf and uses sign language?
A.: All of our demonstrations contain closed captioning to address the deaf population.
Q.: How can I access Meducation?
A.: Meducation will be available for public release later this year. If you are interested in participating in our early adopter program, please contact Dr. Charles Lee at lee@pgsi.com.
Q.: What do I need to run Meducation?
A.: To view patient instructions and demonstrations, you only need an internet connection, a web browser and speakers. A bar code scanner is optional. To generate instructions for patients, a printer is required to print the instruction sheets for the patients.
Q.: Can I use Meducation with English speaking patients?
A.: Absolutely. Meducation includes educational material that improves comprehension of medication instructions. Viewing demonstrations of proper techniques for medications will improve understanding with English speaking patients and should significantly reduce medications errors in this population.