By Doreen DeGroff | Jul 1, 2022
3 minute read Technology| EHR/EMR| Blog
According to The National Assessment of Adult Health Literacy report, only 12% of Americans have proficient health literacy skills. Adults who lack such skills may struggle to understand instructions on drug labels, navigate healthcare services and locations, especially considering that new healthcare “locations” are digital via apps and the patient portal.
Healthy People 2030 takes the definition of health literacy a bit farther by distinguishing between personal health literacy and organizational health literacy. The new definition expands the scope of health literacy to include the health of communities and the responsibility of organizations to empower patients and community members to use the health information they are given to make better decisions and take action with their healthcare.
Empathy could be a great first step
Imagine walking through the healthcare decision making process in the shoes of an individual who struggles with health literacy and trying to interpret verbal instructions, patient education materials, and technology platforms like patient portals. Perhaps an initial step for healthcare organizations and communities could be to evaluate patient touchpoints with healthcare literacy in mind.
Customize your patient portal with health literacy in mind
In a recent webinar on health literacy and the patient portal, we demonstrated several features in the MEDITECH Patient Portal that you can configure to meet the needs of your patient population. Here are a few examples, but you can watch the recording of the webinar for specifics.
The Appointments page is another example where a customized message could help make sure patients don’t waste a trip to an appointment that was pending through online scheduling but not confirmed.
Learn more: Videos and resources
Webinar resources. There is much to learn on the topic of health literacy and patient portals, and we shared the following resources in the webinar:
Video demonstrations. Also, subscribe to our MEDITECH Resource Library to access how-to videos for steps on configuring user types and scheduling. Two newly added videos include:
Healthcare Literacy and Patient Portal: Scheduling video.
See how scheduling settings affect the patient experience in MEDITECH Expanse.
Healthcare Literacy and the Patient Portal: User Types video.
Learn how to increase confidence in using the portal by setting up the correct access types.
Healthcare literacy assessment. We have developed two assessments to help you begin evaluating your facility, community and patient portal, and this article kicks off the series on health literacy and the patient portal and how to get started on a strategy to improve health literacy for your patients and community.
MEDITECH Senior Product Director, CereCore
MEDITECH Senior Product Director, CereCore
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