Parkland’s clinical staff assists patients with health literacy
Health outcomes may be affected by how well a person understands
Understanding complex medical terms and what they mean can be difficult at best, but when there are language and education barriers, making informed healthcare decisions can be virtually impossible.
That’s why clinical staff at Parkland Health & Hospital System work to ensure healthcare materials such as hospital discharge papers or care instructions include simple language, short sentences and define technical terms.
“We don’t all learn the same way. Some of us prefer hearing the information, others want a written document, and for those who don’t read well, or can’t read at all, it’s important to have photos or drawings,” said Shirin Pestonjee, RN, Clinical Education Manager at Parkland. “In addition, we make sure our education material is written to eliminate medical jargon and consistently incorporate language and formatting designed to make the material as accessible as possible to patients with low health literacy.”
Low health literacy is more prevalent among older adults, minority populations, those who have a low socioeconomic status and the medically-underserved population, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Those patients typically have difficulty locating providers and services, filling out complex health forms, sharing their medical history with providers or knowing the connection between risky behaviors and health.
Health literacy also includes numeracy skills. For example, calculating cholesterol and blood sugar levels, measuring medications and understanding nutrition labels all require math skills. Choosing between health plans or comparing drug coverage requires calculating premiums, copays and deductibles.
“People with limited health literacy often lack health knowledge or have misinformation about the body as well as the nature and causes of disease,” Pestonjee said. “Without this knowledge, they may not understand the relationship between lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise and various health outcomes.”
Health information can overwhelm even persons with advanced literacy skills, she noted. Medical science progresses rapidly. What people may have learned about health or biology during their school years often becomes outdated or forgotten, or it is incomplete. Moreover, health information provided in a stressful or unfamiliar situation is unlikely to be retained.
“We seek to provide high quality care for every patient in our system. It’s important that they play an active role in their healthcare,” Pestonjee added, “so if that means taking extra time to ensure they know what they need to do to get on the path to good health, we’re going to do it.”
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