Clinical Advisor recently reported that patients with low health literacy were linked to longer hospital stays, according to a study published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine. The study included 5,983 participants who were admitted or transferred to the general medicine service at the University of Chicago between October 2012 and November 2015.
Patients were screened using three questions to categorize their health literacy, which included: 1) How confident are you in filling out medical forms on your own?, 2) How often do you have someone help you read hospital materials? and 3) How often do you have problems learning about your medical condition because of difficulty understanding written information?
Using the screen, 20 percent ranked as having inadequate health literacy and had an 11 percent longer average length of stay (6.0 versus 5.4 days). Among men, low health literacy was associated with a 17.8 percent longer length of stay, and among women, low health literacy was associated with a 7.7 percent longer length of stay.
October is Health Literacy Month; a time for organizations and individuals to promote the importance of understandable health information. This annual, worldwide, awareness-raising event has been going strong ever since Helen Osborne founded it in 1999. Over the years healthcare organizations, community services, health literacy coalitions, government agencies, literacy programs, universities and many others have hosted a wide range of Health Literacy Month events. These include how-to workshops for professionals, wellness programs for patients and the public and educational offerings for students at all levels.
The theme for Health Literacy Month is “Be a Health Literacy Hero.” It’s about taking action and finding ways to improve health communication. Health Literacy Heroes are individuals, teams, or organizations who not only identify health literacy problems, but also act to solve them. You can help by recognizing and cheering on those you consider as Health Literacy Heroes. Click here for more information plus tools to help.