Latest Health literacy Stories
"Drug list" instead of "formulary.""Person" instead of "member.""Pay" instead of "adjudicate." These are just a few examples of the words that CIGNA is beginning to use as part of its commitment to clear health communication - the topic of discussion at the CIGNA Foundation Forum on Health Literacy held last fall and outlined in CIGNA Foundation's new health literacy report. The report that is now available, Improving Health Begins with Understanding, features recommendations on how...
"What To Do When Your Child Gets Sick," written by two registered nurses frustrated with the typical 11th grade reading level of most patient education materials, recently reached a 2 million copies sold mark since the book's initial publication in 2000. This milestone was made possible in part because of the ongoing search for a solution to rising healthcare costs. It's estimated that low health literacy adds $73 billion annually to U.S. health care costs in unnecessary medical expenses....
By Markova, Tsveti Broome, Barbara Effective communication between patients and health care providers is a critical element to quality health care. Becoming aware of patients' attitudes, beliefs, biases, and behaviors that may influence patient care can help clinicians improve access to and quality of care. Health care providers should develop a strategic plan for improvement, then implement and evaluate the plan to include structured, continuously improving progress toward achieving...
When St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Maryland was looking for a new patient education solution, they turned to Krames. "Historically, we created our own patient education handouts," explained Marci Langbaum, Informatics Nurse Specialist at St. Joseph Medical Center. "But we were having trouble finding the time to keep our materials updated. We were looking for a source that could provide quality, current patient education across all our specialty areas and across the continuum of...
