Literacy

Effective healthcare requires many human actions and interactions with others. To be most effective, human-to-human communication requires all participating parties to completely understand all aspects of medical care under consideration. Though providers of care personally believe that they provide adequate, if not complete, information to their patients, many research studies have demonstrated that large percentages of provider-patient interactions do not provide the patient with all of the information and understanding that is required for optimal outcomes. Many strategies, particularly information in writing, are utilized regularly by providers to ensure understanding and the compliance necessary.

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However, most patients do not have the functional vocabulary even with the assistance of dictionaries, the Internet and non-medical professional social advisors to ensure that the patient, indeed, does fully understand. The patient must be able to carry out all of the ordered processes and procedures timely and faithfully.   Additionally, the patient must accept and adjust their life activities and emotions to the circumstances.

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Current medical dictionaries list more than 120,000 words frequently used in medical or healthcare communication. It is a rare patient, who without a personal professional healthcare educational background, comes to an episode of medical care with a functional vocabulary (literacy) sufficient to ensure a complete understanding of the visit conversation.

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To best assure that the patient does in fact understand the totality of the visit, a provider should use a technique known as “teach back.” That is the provider should ask the patient at the completion of the visit to explain to the provider what they understand, in summary, about the visit and the ordered treatments and follow-up. Thus, the provider can be reassured that the patient has the proper understanding of the providers intentions.

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In the event that the provider does not use such a technique, the patient can on their own initiative asked the provider to listen to their (the patients) understanding of the visit. Thus, the patient initiates the teach back process.

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Initiating “teach back” often triggers additional questions and answers.

In this digital smart cell phone era, with the provider’s permission, the patient can record the visit conversation as a means to review and refer to as a reminder of all of the significant elements of conversation that occurred between the patient and provider.

Every individual should self-educate to enhance their “functional health literacy”, their personal satisfaction,  lower healthcare costs, and, likely, their health outcome