Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.
An estimated nice out of 10 Americans have low health literacy; however, with the added impediment of stress and illness, nearly everyone has low health literacy at some point in time. The burden of improving low health literacy lies not only the individual patient or his or her caregivers; health care providers also must communicate in a health literate way to help ensure that information they are sharing can be readily and fully understood.
To ensure that everyone comprehends healthcare-related messages, the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) is moving toward becoming a more health literate organization. The UMMS’ Community Health Improvement Committee is spearheading an internal campaign to improve health literacy. Achieving better health literacy for our patients and their caregivers will complement our efforts to reduce hospital readmissions and potentially avoidable utilizations (PAUs).
One component of this campaign entails educating providers to focus on patient needs that arise due to low health literacy. To this end, all staff involved in patient care are encouraged to watch the new UMMS Health Literacy video, which highlights the impact of low health literacy on patients and explains how providers can better communicate with their patients to be certain that they truly understand.
Please take a moment to watch the video, available at https://vimeo.com/156762228.
Skip to content