Health Literacy Adding Value and Quality for Patients
Posted by Beth Nice, MS on December 22, 2017
Health literacy being brought to the forefront in health care.
I participated with Cooper providers, ambulatory operations and population health leaders in an early morning round table led by Joseph Betancourt MD, MPH. Dr. Betancourt is the founder and director of the Disparities Solutions Center (DSC), Senior Scientist at the Mongan Institute for Health Policy Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing Internal Medicine physician. The topic for the round table was surround health literacy.
He shared with us his research surrounding minorities and other vulnerable populations receiving lower quality healthcare. Frequent causes for hospital readmissions include scenarios where patients misunderstand their discharge instructions and/or their medications. One technique that can be practiced with patients is “Teach Back”. This technique has been shown to improve quality and safety at the system level and reduce readmissions. An example of the technique is where a clinician simply rephrases instructions with simpler words and asks the patients to respond by repeating back the instructions in their own words.
We strive at the AllCare Health Alliance to utilize those tools that will allow us to reach our patients more effectively. Health literacy is imperative. Over the coming months we will investigate new way to strengthen communication with our patients in thoughtful and meaningful ways.
