The Patient Channel®

Frequently Asked Questions About The Sponsors / Advertisers

Answers

  1. Why is there advertising on The Patient Channel?
    The goal of The Patient Channel is to educate patients and their families during the times when they need accurate health-related information the most. Advertising revenue enables us to provide the channel at low or no cost to hospitals, but also to produce more high quality programs that better prepare patients to participate in their own care and recover.


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  2. But doesn't this advertising imply that the hospital or doctor is endorsing the products advertised?
    Not at all. There is a clear separation between the educational content and the advertising itself - both of which have to be approved by our outside ethical and medical advisory board. The fact is that patients can watch many channels on their hospital TV during their stay and see the same ads there. The presence of ads on The Patient Channel does not imply endorsement by the hospital or its physicians any more than ads in the magazines found in hospital or doctor waiting rooms do. If The Patient Channel should be taken out of hospitals because it contains advertising, should every magazine be removed from every waiting room and patient lounge, too?


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  3. How many ads will run during Patient Channel Programming?
    There is considerably less advertising on The Patient Channel than there is on regular TV. Commercial television channels run between 16-18 minutes of advertising per hour . The Patient Channel will run no more than 10 minutes of advertising per hour.


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  4. But what if a patient wants to know more about a medication they see advertised on The Patient Channel?
    That's precisely what The Patient Channel is designed to do - make patients better informed about their condition, their treatment and their options so they can take a more active role in their care. The fact that they see something they want to ask their doctor about while in the hospital is the perfect time for them to be able to ask questions and raise any concerns they may have. The Patient Channel should facilitate better dialogue between patients and their caregivers because patients are better informed.


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  5. Shouldn't the doctor or nurse be the one to deliver important information about a diagnosis and subsequent treatment or care?
    Absolutely. The Patient Channel is designed to provide general knowledge of many conditions to enable the patient and his or her family to ask better informed questions. If a patient can watch a 30 minute show that overviews what they need to know about their condition, it frees the medical team to provide important patient care first, and supportive education for patients second.


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  6. Whose idea was The Patient Channel?
    When we asked TiP-TV hospitals what else they needed from the GE Healthcares' satellite network, they stressed the need for high quality, continuously updated patient education and information. Television as a tool to help increase patient awareness and involvement is very desirable, but the expense and need to keep the resources up to date has made this difficult for most hospitals. Studies not only show that people learn best via the medium they are most familiar and comfortable with - in this case, television - they also show that people learn best from visuals or pictures instead of receiving lectures. The Patient Channel fulfills both needs.


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  7. How does GE respond regarding the Commercial Alert letter urging hospitals not to subscribe to the Patient Channel?
    Frankly, the doctors, nurses and executives at the currently installed hospitals consider themselves the gatekeepers of patient care and safety, and were offended to hear that a group which admits never having seen the channel thinks they would put their patients at risk for a no-cost product, or that patients cant tell the difference between ads and education content.


    >     Hospitals do not benefit financially from the Patient Channel.

    > All subscribing hospitals to date have put our channel through a rigorous, interdisciplinary review as part of their due diligence.

    > The rate of acceptances is slightly up, not down as a result of the continued attention we receive thanks in part to Commercial Alerts.

    > We've had no withdrawals, and not a single hospital or patient complaint to date regarding the ads or the programming through June.

    > TV Ads are a component of other ventures in healthcare-most notably The Newborn Channel and Accent Health, which have large hospital installed bases. Sponsor dollars support other healthcare ventures as well.


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  8. News articles state that JCAHO sent a letter to GE saying that Patient Channel programming does not support a hospital or hospital's staff in complying with Joint Commission requirements for patient education.
    Press quotes that "JCAHO recently rebuffed The Patient Channel and is looking to have its name stripped from all TPC marketing/promotion materials" is a mischaracterization of what transpired. News articles that stated that our programming did not meet JCAHO standards completely distorted JCAHO's remarks and showed a basic ignorance of what JCAHO does.

    JCAHO's comments to us were simply that The Patient Channel is not a replacement for the individual, one on one interaction with a healthcare provider that they require...and we have never claimed to be. JCAHO asked ONLY that we remove their name from marketing materials; they do not want to be perceived as endorsing ANY specific product and we have honored their request. That is why The Patient Channel stands by our statements that we support a hospital's JCAHO compliance and care management initiatives, but have agreed to replace references to JCAHO with a more generic statement that we support regulatory compliance and care management initiatives.


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  9. What exactly does JCAHO require? And how is that different than what The Patient Channel is doing?
    JCAHO's education requirements include that "patients receive education and training specific to the patient's assessed needs, abilities, learning preferences, and readiness to learn ..." In other words, JCAHO standards require that healthcare professionals in hospitals sit down with patients in a one-on-one fashion and, depending on their unique circumstances, educate them about their conditions and illnesses.

    The Patient Channel was developed to supplement hospital's educational efforts by leveraging the power of television to provide high quality, low cost, educational content to patients and their families. It was never our intent, nor have we implied, that the channel would be a replacement for the hospital's educational responsibilities to patients. The Patient Channel delivers core content about particular diseases and conditions. It is meant as a foundation of knowledge to be helpful for further, more specific education. By that we meant that after watching our programming, patients would be better able to understand their disease, it's diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. And better able to understand what their doctors and nurses were saying and better able to ask intelligent questions.

    Other JCAHO requirements are that hospitals document their processes for increasing patient and family understanding, encouraging patient engagement in their care, and providing information in formats which patients prefer. If properly incorporated into hospital procedures, The Patient Channel does all of those things, (just like other video based educational tools the hospitals use with patients.)

    The hospitals, by the way, understand this quite well. We have received numerous requests from hospitals on this topic, where they have asked us to install by a specific date so that they can have the channel available when the JCAHO auditor arrives! This has been borne out in the way nurses and patients have responded when asked about the Channel by reporters.


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  10. Do you plan to change your programming in response to this letter? The JCAHO also recommends in the letter that the "credibility of the Patient Channel would be enhanced" by clear and separate identification of the marketing content from the programming content.
    There are, in fact, a number of ways in which we currently and clearly divide advertising and our educational content. We have not received a single customer complaint about the dividing line between content and ads, and the health care professionals we look to for objective consultation agree that patients viewing our channel can differentiate easily between education programs and advertising. Several times since our launch, we've implemented changes, which provide additional reinforcement, based on customer suggestions.


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  11. JCAHO urged the inclusion of "prominent disclaimers that the hospital does not endorse the product or service advertised or recommend that the patient use it."
    Such disclaimers have been prominent on the channel and marketing materials since our launch.

    This disclaimer airs on our channel every half hour:
    "The information contained in The Patient Channel broadcasts is intended for general informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Neither GE nor this facility shall have any liability to any person for any persons' use of the information contained in The Patient Channel broadcasts or the accuracy of the content provided by third parties. The Patient Channel is supported by national product advertisements. This facility does not necessarily endorse nor does it have any financial interest in the products advertised during these programs."


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