Health Literacy Month is recognized annually in October. This awareness campaign is led by the Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA) and inspires healthcare organizations to promote the importance of understandable health information. Organizations take part by hosting a wide range of events for patients, providers and caregivers and by sharing educational resources.
The theme for 2016 is, “Be a Health Literacy Hero,” which highlights taking action and finding ways to improve health communication.
According to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, only 12 percent of Americans are considered ‘proficient’ in health literacy. 14 percent of those surveyed fell below what’s considered basic health literacy. That means about 30 million people in this country don’t have the knowledge they need to keep themselves healthy. Given the complexity of the healthcare system, it is not surprising that limited health literacy is associated with poor health outcomes, lack of preventive services and an increase in avoidable hospital readmissions.
What Can You Do to be Health Literacy Hero?
October is a great time to assess your patient education materials, discharge instructions and other patient communications for good health literacy practices. Take the opportunity to survey your patients for their satisfaction with and comprehension of patient education content and talk with your clinical staff about any gaps they have observed in preparing patients to discharge and transition home.
There is no better time to identify ways we can become better health communicators. Below are resources you can utilize to help raise awareness for health literacy and improve written materials in your organization to aid in understanding.
- Sign up for the Health Literacy Consulting e-Newsletter which includes the latest articles, how-to’s, podcasts and other heath literacy updates
- Nominate individuals, teams and/or organizations you have seen identify health literacy problems and act to solve them as Health Literacy Heroes
- Promote awareness of the observance with IHA’s materials, including handouts, banners, buttons, bookmarks and postcards. Email helen@healthliteracy.com for the files.
- Print the provider Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective, a health literacy resource from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention health literacy resources
- National Patient Safety Foundation health literacy information
Watch a video tutorial:
From the National Library of Medicine
Understanding Medical Words