Do Your Messages Resonate? Three Ways to Communicate More Meaningfully. Guest post written by Brigitte Granger, Product Manager at Rendia. When you’re speaking to patients, do you ever feel like you’re talking to a brick wall? How can you make sure your messages are getting through to patients? When we design videos, we take best practices for communication into account. Here are some of our favorite strategies that you can use to maximize your messages’ impact. Customize to your patient’s situation — without getting too technical. It’s tough to strike the balance between using simple language that patients can understand and covering all the essential information. Oversimplifying your message might brush over specific details unique to each patient — details that are necessary for them to make informed health decisions. On the other hand, using complex sentence structures and technical terminology can hinder patient understanding. We suggest using the teach-back method to assess whether patients are understanding and how well you’re striking the balance. Ensure cultural relevance. When people from the intended audience are depicted in patient education materials, the message is more culturally relevant and meaningful for the audience. A great way to honor Black History Month next month would be to assess whether your educational materials are inclusive and represent a variety of ethnicities. We’ve been making efforts to promote diversity in our videos to make messages resonate with all of our customers’ patients. Communicate messages through multiple venues. One strategy used by educators who are trying to engage students more effectively is called Universal Design for Learning. One of the key principles is to provide multiple means of representation and engagement when communicating ideas to engage different types of learning styles. By offering options, you can make your messages accessible to everyone and increase patients’ likelihood of engagement.