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Posted April 13, 2006
Patient Safety and Quality Healthcare: New Products
Health Literacy: The Foundation for Patient Safety, Empowerment, and Quality Health Care
According to published reports, approximately half of all adults living in the U.S. lack the literacy skills necessary to effectively navigate the health care system. Low health literacy — whether attributable to poor reading and language skills or low English proficiency — is so pervasive in this country that it presents a significant threat to patient safety. Factor in the growing number of people who must manage one or more chronic health conditions, and the impact of low health literacy is potentially profound. Low health literacy is especially prominent among the elderly and minority Americans, exacerbating health care disparities. From a public health vantage point to every individual patient encounter, low health literacy — and the risks it entails — must be addressed, and its threats mitigated.
Health Literacy: The Foundation for Patient Safety, Empowerment, and Quality Health Care, June 26-27, 2006, Rosemont, Illinois, is one in a series of Joint Commission symposia addressing major public policy issues in health care. This symposium will frame the issues that surround low health literacy and offer solutions that health care clinicians, managers, communicators, policymakers and advocates can implement to ensure effective communications — the very bedrock of every patient encounter and public health goal.
Key topics to be addressed at the conference include:
- How low health literacy is linked to unsafe care and poor outcomes, increased costs, and inefficient care
- Strategies to ensure patient-centered communications are employed in every patient encounter and across the care continuum
- Tools and techniques that can be used to overcome the challenge of low health literacy when communicating complex medical information
- Models for achieving shared medical decision-making and truly informed consent
- Strategies to address low health literacy in the care of people with chronic conditions
- The critical role cultural competency has in the delivery of high-quality, effective health care
- New methods for enhancing a patient's ability to navigate the health care setting — as well as the "system"
For additional information about this symposium or to register, go to http://www.jcrinc.com/education.asp?durki=11276&site=5&return=11114
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