Healthy Chat

The Latrobe Community Health Service in conjunction with Monash University have been working to develop methods that might help clinicians shift conversations they have with patients during consultations, from acute issues (identified for treatment by the patient) to chronic issues (avoided by patients). A patient who presents with another virus infection wants some treatment for that condition but does not want to address their underlying smoking and alcohol consumption. A Healthy Chat is one where the clinician subtly shifts the conversation from the acute issue brought by the patient to the background long-term health concern.

Inky Smudge was engaged to help develop the narrative, to create unique custom graphical representations that targeted the intended demographic, to film sample engagements between clinicians and patients on location in Gippsland, and to roll all of those elements into a coherent storyline that would help clinicians understand how they could raise chronic health subjects with potentially reluctant patients.

As a motif of the work that Inky Smudge undertakes in the elearning field, the quality of engagement is uppermost of mind given that engagement (generated by high production values across many different types of media) promotes improved memory retention due to the broader activation of brain function within the learning process. Witness for example the difference between reading a story in text, and watching that story acted out on video, for increasing the level of engagement and memory retention.