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On this page you will find tips for utilizing health literacy techniques, including:
Health literacy universal precautions are the steps that health care professionals take when they assume that all patients may have difficulty comprehending health information and accessing health services.
Experts recommend you should assume that everyone may have difficulty understanding health information and recommend creating an environment where all patients can thrive. Universal precautions should be taken to address health literacy because providers can't always know which patients are challenged by health care information or tasks at any given time. By adopting a universal precautions approach, health care providers communicate with all patients in clear and actionable ways.
Health literacy universal precautions are aimed at:
The teach-back method is a way of checking for understanding by asking patients or families to state in their own words what they need to know or do about their health.
Use teach back for medical encounters to ensure understanding and improve safety. Correct any misunderstandings and be ready to try teach-back again. Give positive and encouraging feedback. Ask open ended questions.
Teach back examples:
Open ended questions are questions that cannot be answered with a static response. Use open ended questions rather than yes/no questions to further assess patient understanding.
Open ended question examples:
Health numeracy is the measure which people understand and act on numerical health information to make effective health decisions. Using low numeracy principles for risk communication is helpful for all individuals.
Health Literacy Written Materials Principles
When creating, using, or assessing handouts:
Too much information may overwhelm or intimidate the patient or their caregivers. Limiting each communication to three key messages helps everyone to focus on the details that matter most.
Limiting information can be done through Chunk and Check and Ask Me 3®. Chunk and Check is the practice of grouping related information together and then assessing comprehension. Ask Me 3® is trademarked didactic concept consisting of three questions aimed at summarizing important health-related information.
“Plain Language means documents written and formatted such that they are easy to read, understand and utilize.” There are no universally accepted rules and or guidelines for plain language.
Plain language is communication your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it. Written material is in plain language if your audience can:
This list of medical words decoded into plain language was developed by the Medical Library Association to help patients understand their healthcare provider. Healthcare professionals can use it to help translate medical terminology into simple language in order to improve patient communication.
Plain language principles include:
Using simple, easy-to-understand words and numbers
Keeping it short by sticking to 1-3 ideas
Identify who is doing what and use an active voice
Plain language examples:
A project of the University of Michigan Taubman Health Sciences Library. To use, click on the drop down menu to browse the list of high-level medical terms. Once a word or phrase is selected, the plain language translation will appear in the box.
From the CDC's National Center for Health Marketing, this thesaurus offers plain language equivalents to medical terms, phrases, and references.
Tips to consider when creating educational materials. From Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Contains guidelines for creating plain language materials, as well as an overview of the plain language movement and tools for trainers.
This online tool calculates the grade level of written materials.
Provides a detailed and comprehensive set of tools to help make written material easier for people to read, understand, and use.
One-stop source for web designers to learn how to make websites more usable, useful, and accessible.
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