Members of our team had the opportunity to present a new poster abstract at the ASHP 2023 Midyear Clinical Meeting held December 3-7.

Background

Health literacy is the ability to find, understand, and use health information and services.

Limited health literacy is a public health concern associated with poor medication adherence, increased hospitalizations, and higher healthcare costs. It can impede individuals’ understanding and utilization of health information, resulting in suboptimal self-care practices and compromised decision-making. Health literate care can improve patient-provider communication, increase patient engagement, increase utilization of preventative services, and reduce health disparities. 

Within one health care organization, a prior initiative determined knowledge gaps regarding health literacy and highlighted a need for improvement in this area for those employed by the organization.
In response to these challenges, a systems-thinking approach, which involves analyzing and addressing complex problems by considering the interactions of various components within a larger system, was adopted within the healthcare organization.

Objectives

The purpose of this study is to implement and assess the impact of an organization-wide educational training focused on health literacy and strategies for improving health literacy to address previously identified knowledge gaps.

Read about the team's findings by downloading the Outcomes Study below.

Download the abstract: