Health Literacy Consulting "How-To"
www.healthliteracy.com
February, 2010
How to Address Health Literacy Challenges
Recently, I started asking new e-newsletter subscribers about their health literacy (HL) challenges. Since others may share these concerns, this month I decided to highlight a few of them. Here are your challenges along with my responses and resources.
Your HL challenge:
How to help patients follow hospital discharge instructions.
HL Consulting response: Studies show that transitions in care (when patients go from one level of care to another) are rife with problems of miscommunication and misunderstanding. Many people are working hard to help. I recently interviewed two of them:
- Dr. Brian Jack is practicing physician and researcher. He has been studying what constitutes a “good” hospital discharge and how to achieve it. Here’s an article about his excellent and innovative work, “In Other Words…Project RED: The Reengineered Hospital Discharge Program.”
- Carol Levine directs the Families and Health Care Project that focuses on developing partnerships between healthcare professionals and family caregivers. You can listen to our conversation about communicating during transitions in care, "Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast #22: Writing Information That Caregivers Can Understand and Providers Will Accept.”
Your HL challenge: How to write clear, simple sentences.
HL Consulting response: To me, writing in plain language is both a science and an art. The science (technical) part has to do with guidelines such as using common, short words or explaining complex concepts in simple ways. The artful part means writing in a respectful manner and engaging tone. Here's a "How-To" Tip that might interest you, “Tone: Inviting Your Readers to Read.”
Your HL challenge:
How to design patient education materials.
HL Consulting response: Writing readable documents takes more than just using simple words and short sentences. Design, layout and graphics are also important. You can hear my conversation with Dr. Karen Schriver (and read the transcript), "Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast #29: Using Design to Get Readers to Read and Keep Reading.”
Your HL challenge:
How to change the U.S. healthcare system.
HL Consulting response: Honestly, I wish I had an answer. My simple solution to this very complicated challenge is summed up in one word, “Vote.”
What is your biggest health literacy challenge? Please
email it to me at Helen@healthliteracy.com
For permission to include Health Literacy Consulting Tips in your organization's newsletter, please contact Helen Osborne by e-mail at: helen@healthliteracy.com, or by phone at: 508-653-1199.
