Health Literacy

If a patient doesn’t understand what they need to do to take care of themselves, have the care providers done their duty? 

Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and what services are needed to make appropriate health decisions. 

Health providers have a responsibility to communicate in health-literate ways to help ensure that their patients understand what they need to do. Take a look at this video to learn more about the challenge of health literacy. It includes some important steps to make sure your patients understand what they need to do.

How "health literate" are you? Are you making sure you are speaking to patients in a way that they clearly understand? After watching this video, let us know what you think by taking this short survey. Keep this Checklist for Health Literate Documents handy so that you may have a quick reference for the future.

Click on the image for a larger view