Helping Patients Become Health Literate via Medical Economics

Helping Patients Become Health Literate

Medical Economics: 4.02.2020 by Joseph M. Geskey, DO, MBA, MS-PopH

The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy reported that only 12% of American adults have proficient health literacy. Possessing limited health literacy can lead to poorer health outcomes, including earlier death, and suboptimal use of health care services. A debate exists as to whether health care organizations should use a “universal precautions” approach to health literacy where simplified information is presented to everyone undergoing a health intervention versus tailoring patient interventions based on the results of validated health literacy screening tools.

Due to the biology of aging, the potential presence of a life-limiting chronic illness and individuals who have completed a high school education or less, there is ample opportunity for widespread patient misunderstanding of their disease, their medication, how to self-manage their condition and how to appropriately access medical services.

Additionally, patients who have limited English proficiency are also at an increased risk for misunderstanding critical health care information. A recent report from Angela G. Brega and colleagues in HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice suggested a framework that organizations can use to become more health literate, which can also serve as a useful guide for an individual practitioner working in an outpatient setting.

Communication

Clear, concise communication in both the written and oral format is essential for your message to be adequately understood.  It is recommended that any patient-related material that is being given to patients be written at the sixth grade reading level or lower, preferably accompanied with pictures and illustrations.

One easy way to assess whether print materials are written at the appropriate reading level is to put the text into an ✽Automatic Readability Checker. This free resource analyzes text and converts it into a reading grade formula.

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Ease of navigation

Navigation doesn’t necessarily mean how patients manage to get to your office, or find your health system’s phlebotomy lab, radiology department, or outpatient testing area.  Although some health systems have navigation apps that can be downloaded and utilized, patients should not be expected to be proficient in digital strategies in order to have a successful visit.

Although having people assist with wayfinding in large institutions and having prominent, easy-to-understand signs that are updated when changes to service offerings occur is critical to engender trust, loyalty and satisfaction, ease of navigation should be thought of as how patients and their data move within and across organizations.

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Patient engagement & self-management support

The most important quality a health care provider can possess in helping patients with limited health literacy is empathy.  READ MORE ➤➤

✽Automatic Readability Checker

Based on (7) readability formulas:

Grade Level: 17

Reading Level: very difficult to read.

Reader's Age: College graduate