General literacy is widely understood as an important skill that must be prioritized to ensure that people can live healthy and successful lives. In our medical field we also have patient literacy, also known as health literacy.” That CDC define as the “degree to which people have the ability to obtain, process and understand the basic health information and services necessary to make appropriate health decisions.”
Patient literacy is as important as general literacy, but is not prioritized equally. According to the US Department of Health and Services. UU., Only 12 percent of Americans have patient literacy at a level that would be considered adequate. This has harmful and expensive impacts for patients, medical care organizations and society in general.
In addition to its general importance, patient literacy is especially important in oncology due to how complex, intensive and with information can be cancer treatment. Low levels of patient literacy among cancer patients are bad health results, higher medical costs and lower patient satisfaction. On the other hand, the largest literacy of patients between cancer patients leads to better treatment results, lower costs and greater patient satisfaction. Clearly, most medical care organizations would prefer that their patients have higher levels of health literacy. But what are the barriers that get in the way and how can these barriers be addressed?
The critical role played by nurses
Probable is not a surprise for anyone that nurses play an important role in health literacy for cancer patients. Nurses spend more time with patients than doctors, and for oncological nurses this is true not only in a newspaper but also in terms of the general treatment period as cancer becomes a chronic pulmonary term condition. Partly for how much they spend with cancer patients, but also for the vulnerability and gratitude that patients with express cancer cancer tend to experience deeper feelings of meaning with their patients. The time and the special connection that Oncology nurses share with their patients inevitably put them in a position to play an important role for patient literacy.
However, there are some common barriers that make it more difficult for nurses, both in general and specifically oncological nurses, advocate the most effective as possible. One is that despite having a high level of medical knowledge, not all nurses have all the necessary skills to completely promote health literacy. For example, they could lack the ability to evaluate the levels of health literacy of their patients or can make assumptions and overestimate literacy levels on the health of their patients.
Another barrier is the lack of cultural competence, which is a complete or proper problem, but it is also related to patient literacy. Cultural competence is the ability to recognize different cultures and their various beliefs, perspectives, experiences and traditions. It is also the ability to understand the importance of language and adapt to the different levels of people’s English domain. The need for cultural competence is especially large when working with patients from medically suborted populations, since many of them may not be native English speakers. A high percentage of oncology nurses faces communication challenges with patients who speak English as a second language, and cannot always recognize signs of low health literacy in these patients.
Remedies to problems
One way to address these challenges is to integrate skills related to the evaluation and promotion of literacy in health in the training and education of nurses. It is not common for nurses currently receiving literacy training of patients in nursing schools. He only thought that nursing program curricula are already full of content, adding training in health literacy does not require dramatic changes in existing programs. It can be as simple as adding a class or two, and only four hours of content have a Bone Show to improve the knowledge and awareness of nursing students or patient literacy.
As mentioned, nurses are in a natural position to advocate for patient literacy due to how long they spend with patients. However, the responsibility of promoting patient literacy should not rest only on the shoulders of nurses. Nurses already have a significant amount of care load, and oncology nurses, in particular, treat the additional psychological load of the care of dying patients who contribute to high rates of exhaustion and rotation.
The responsibility for patient literacy must be shared in all medical care personnel not only to guarantee a fairer distribution of work, but to promote the highest possible level of literacy of patients. Fortunately, as with nurses, a little investment in this area is very useful. Research shows that only a training intervention in patient literacy improved consciousness and patient literacy skills between doctors and general medical care personnel. The use of browsers of patients dedicated in many hospitals is another promising way to distribute part of the responsibility of promoting patient literacy.
Technology can also play a role. At this point, there are risks to use AI for patient literacy due to the potential for inaccurate information. But as technology becomes more precise and affordable, using the resource for patient literacy has a lot of potential. For example, hospitals could be equipped with terminals where IA chatbots can evaluate patient health literacy and provide basic information. It would not be to replace the guide in person that nurses and other health professionals provide but to serve as a useful supplement. Simply something as simple as a television channel dedicated to promoting patient literacy can be easily integrated into existing infrastructure and be very useful in health environments that do not yet have this in their place.
In general, be it a dedicated TV channel, an AI chatbot or traditional printed material, all information provided to patients must have an “universal precautions” approach. This means using simple and daily language in written and spoken forms. Also meaans using many images and graphics instead of trusting the text too much. Finally, medical care personnel should never make assumptions about the level of health literacy of a patient based on appearances or external qualifications, such as their educational level or the current occupation because the theses can be misleading.
Changing any status quo is a challenge, but maintaining the status quo of the low alphabetization of patients in medical care is expensive and detriment for both patients and medical care organizations. Therefore, investing in patient literacy is investing in medical care itself. And, as research shows, equally small changes such as nurses, doctors and health personnel can lead to better results for patient literacy.
Photo: Hiraman, Getty Images
This publication appears through Medical influencers program. Anyone can publish their perspective on business and innovation in medical care in Medcity News through influential people of Medcy. Click here to find out how.