EZ Word Board



Two-sided dry-erase board, 17 x 11" individually shrink-wrapped with a dry-erase marker. Available in Arabic, English, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Tagalong, Farsi, Chinese, French, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Portugese, Spanish, and Vietnamese. All non-English boards are bilingual with English subtitles.

“HPNA has reviewed and approved this product. While this Mark of Endorsement validates the quality of the content of this product, the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association does not wish to confer medical advice.”

For Medicare or insurance claims use HCPCS Code E1902.

Evidence-Based Practice

We are patient advocates on the issue of patient communication and want to empower you with all the necessary resources to help your organization achieve the best outcomes for your patients.  Our work stems from the core motivation that was drawn from one of our members' nursing practice that observed two lung-transplant patients completely withdraw over a period of a few months from being unable to communicate on a ventilator.  Without being able to write legibly or communicate effectively using other means, their withdrawal became unrecoverable.  This was before the E|Z Board.  From this discovery, we conducted a two-year research study which allowed us to design a communication board that met the needs of patients who could not speak.  A research agenda was launched throughout the healthcare community and multiple studies on an international scale have examined the EZ Board and we have adapted the product to meet ongoing research findings and patient preferences to the the board you see today.

Our goal is to prevent this withdraw, to empower patients to participate with their care, to empower and encourage nursing staff to be able to achieve and maintain the same therapeutic relationships with patients who cannot speak as they can with patients who can speak.  Following our research and implementation of the E|Z Board, we have learned how providing the right communication tools to patients with communication impairment can improve patient outcomes.  Using communication boards that are not research-based may discourage the practice of using communication boards altogether.  We encourage you to implement our EZ Boards into your everyday patient care.  By improving patient satisfaction, improving patient outcomes we are certain your institution will achieve cost-savings benefits that justify this change in practice. 

Universal Standard of Care

Recommendations

We recommend the boards be stocked in preoperative rooms for preoperative teaching, recovery rooms, ER's, ICU's, rehabilitation units, head and neck suites, nursing homes, hospices and general medicine units where there may be patients who are unable to verbally communicate or cannot speak English.  We also recommend the boards be made available through your interpreter/translation department for non-English speaking patients.

Simple implementation Strategies:

1. Include communication boards as part of preoperative teaching package.
2. Add "Communication needs addressed" as a checklist items for preoperative teaching assessments.
3. Add "Patient able to communicate effectively? Preferred communication method?" on ICU Daily Round Sheets.
4. Add "Patient communication board" on Physician admission order sets where impaired communication is anticipated (e.g. cardiac surgeries, head and neck surgeries, trauma, ICU's, etc.).

For the safety of your patient and increased utilization of your EZ Boards, you may also want to invest in our beside rail holder to allow for easy access and storage of your patient’s communication board.  Much like the call light, keeping this board within reach empowers the patient and promotes autonomy.  These holders are durable and reusable. Please use our savings analysis (PDF) for a detailed summary and a sample calculation of how implementing the E|Z Board into standard practice hospital wide can save your hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars with reduced sedation, length of ICU and hospital stay.