Health Literacy Tips: Speak Clearly, Teach Often

America’s health literacy challenge

According to reports research by the U.S. Department of Education shows that almost 130 million American adults read below a sixth-grade level, and only 12% Americans have proficient health knowledge. Healthy People 2030 defines health literacy because the degree to which “individuals can find, understand, and use information and services to make health-related decisions for themselves and others.”

The challenge with health literacy is that it may be influenced by several aspects, including age, reading level, language barriers, religious beliefs, culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic conditions, disability, and more. If nurses and other healthcare professionals don’t take all of those aspects into consideration, health literacy shall be inadequate.

Insufficient health literacy can impact timely access to care, continuity of care, and patient satisfaction. It can also contribute to low compliance with discharge instructions, which can increase the patient’s probabilities of readmission. Knowing find out how to promote health literacy amongst patients and their families is essential to helping patients get well within the hospital and proceed to heal after discharge. Here are some suggestions which will help.

Start constructing trust on day one

Will Newton, RN Don’t delay. Start promoting health knowledge at the primary meeting with the patient and his family. Reassure them that they’re in an inclusive care environment and that staff will respect their cultural and spiritual beliefs, sexual or gender orientation, and communication preferences. Encourage them to take part in their care. Identify patient decision makers and include them in all discussions during your hospital stay and discharge planning.

Assess your patient, then act

Complete a full assessment of the patient’s ability to grasp health information and take part in decisions and treatment plans. Determine if any hearing, speech, language or cognitive problems may impact their ability to speak or understand health information. Be prepared to beat any barriers you encounter. Determine the patient’s preferred language for health care discussions, record it within the medical record, and communicate it to all staff who will take care of the patient. If the patient’s preferred language is just not English, plan for language services to help with interpretation and for educational and consent materials to be available in the suitable language.

Choose your teaching materials properly

Use teaching materials that complement explanations of diagnoses and coverings. These materials ought to be appropriate for every patient’s reading level and preferred language.

Use the first care model

In the first nursing model, the first bedside nurse takes on many of the role of training the patient and family and ensuring they understand and might comply with the diagnosis and ongoing care. This nurse serves because the person chargeable for collaboration between interdisciplinary teams regarding the patient’s care plan. Due to shift changes, a patient could also be cared for by two primary nurses, but the first nurse reports to all other nurses on the care team, outlining not only the care motion plan but additionally further literacy needs.

Practice the teach-back method

WITH learning methodnurses first make sure that the patient and family understand the diagnosis, treatment plan and next steps, including continuity of care. The patient or family (if the patient is unable to reply or understand or is a pediatric patient) must reveal that she or he understands what has been taught and communicate this to the nurse. This is a continuous process that happens repeatedly through the patient’s stay within the hospital, especially before discharge. Tests shows that the strategy can strengthen patient education and improve patients’ knowledge of their condition, understanding of discharge instructions, and drugs adherence.

Speak fastidiously after which listen

Medical terms, treatments and diagnoses haven’t got to sound so complicated. To leave medical jargon to discuss with other health care professionals. Whenever you provide updates to patients and their relations, achieve this without rushing through presentations. The patient doesn’t care – and should not care – that he’s been assigned too many patients and that he’s running out of time. Exclaiming, “Everything looks good!” could also be music to the patient’s ears, however it is just not very specific. Take a couple of extra minutes to clarify what this implies. Likewise, in case you find cause for concern or repeat tests, explain what the tests are called (without medical jargon), what their purposes are, and what they’re speculated to search for. If you’re waiting for a more detailed explanation out of your doctor, provide as much information as possible and keep your loved ones informed. If a brand new development occurs, allow them to know as soon as possible. Confidence may erode if, for instance, a recently discovered complication reminiscent of an infection is just not thoroughly explained. As best as you possibly can, explain the origin of the infection, the strategy of treatment (IV agent? Topical solution? Both?), once you expect results, and whether the infection can have any impact on the patient’s recovery. Providing detailed information ought to be provided to each patient, even in the event that they are also a nurse, said Shalla Newton, MSN, RN, NE-BC, a topic expert and medical author for Relias magazine and a staunch advocate of health literacy. Newton shared an experience she had during her recent hospitalization.

“I was not informed that my labs and vital signs indicated potential sepsis because I was half asleep in the middle of the night,” Newton said. “At 4:00 a.m. a nurse came in and said they would be here every 30 minutes, checking my vitals and labs and increasing the dose of intravenous antibiotics. I asked why and she assumed I knew I was on sepsis treatment protocol. She assumed that being a nurse myself, I just knew it.”

Be specific when giving instructions during hospitalization or when giving instructions upon discharge, but watch out to not sound condescending. This may cause the patient or family to lose trust, stop communicating, or develop into indignant. Give patients loads of time to ask questions and take notes. Summarize your explanations and next steps in treatment.

Use fastidiously chosen visual aids

Visual aids reminiscent of videos, photos, or illustrations may help patients higher understand health information. But not only any health video or photo will do – select visual aids that should not only culturally sensitive, but additionally very specific to what you are attempting to show or reveal.

Warn patients concerning the Internet

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 74% of all adults within the US Use the Internet, and 61% searched for health or medical information on the Internet. Given that patients and their families often search for information online once they have questions, they ought to be evaded web sites that provide inappropriate, unsubstantiated advice or treatments.

Send them home prepared

Explain discharge instructions fastidiously and allow them to know who to contact in the event that they have further questions. If the hospital makes follow-up calls, inform the patient and family that they will expect a call and inform them of its contents. Prepare an inventory of providers that provide services that meet the patient’s needs. Newton, who emphasizes that knowledge about education and health begins with admission to the hospital but doesn’t end with discharge, cited the California-based Nurse-led Discharge Learning Collaborative, or organization CANDLE collaboration, for instance. The goal of this collaboration is to enhance the delivery of discharge care at pediatric centers across the country for kids diagnosed with medical instability or complex and rare diseases. Newton said that within the collaborative’s preferred discharge care delivery model, each patient and family has a dedicated team to take care of their needs. “Continuity of care is a must,” she said. “The patient must have a primary care physician or specialist who will be a gatekeeper and take over care if the patient does not already have one.” In this model, teams use a core nursing model and learning methods to “ensure continuity of care after discharge from the hospital,” she said. Newton, who suffers from two rare diseases that cause aggressive systemic diseases that lead to compromised immunity, shared her personal experiences as a patient to spotlight the importance of health literacy and the necessity to involve nurses in these efforts. “Our healthcare system is so isolated and fragmented that it is not designed to care for patients with complex and rare conditions like mine,” she said. “I have bypassed my comprehensive care by creating a document that discusses my extremely rare and complex diseases, treatment plan, baseline standards, and standing orders during hospitalization, which helps both the hospital and new outpatient providers on my care team. When you are cared for, the team feels at ease and more comfortable treating complex cases, increasing their health knowledge about your condition, trust and shared decision-making only becomes easier.” You can read more about Newton’s personal journey on the web site sdthe411.com.