scholarly journals Health Literacy and Communication Quality in Health Care Organizations

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (sup2) ◽  
pp. 102-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew K. Wynia ◽  
Chandra Y. Osborn
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Communication Quality ◽  
Quality In Health Care

Health literacy and palliative care

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-95
Author(s):  
Melissa G. French
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Patient Preferences ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Patient Centered Care ◽  
Patient Centered ◽  
Centered Care ◽  
Pathway To Care

Abstract Health literacy and palliative care have been receiving more attention within health care organizations and systems in recent years. Both can offer a pathway to care that is better for patients and has the potential to be of high value. A health literate approach to palliative care provides patient-centered care that is better aligned with patient preferences and needs.

scholarly journals Addressing health literacy in the digital domain: insights from a literature review

Kybernetes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocco Palumbo ◽  
Capolupo Nicola ◽  
Paola Adinolfi
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Digital Environment ◽  
Content Type

PurposePromoting health literacy, i.e. the ability to access, collect, understand and use health-related information, is high on the health policy agenda across the world. The digitization of health-care calls for a reframing of health literacy in the cyber-physical environment. The article systematizes current scientific knowledge about digital health literacy and investigates the role of health-care organizations in delivering health literate health-care services in a digital environment.Design/methodology/approachA literature review was accomplished. A targeted query to collect relevant scientific contributions was run on PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. A narrative approach was undertaken to summarize the study findings and to envision avenues for further development in the field of digital health literacy.FindingsDigital health literacy has peculiar attributes as compared with health literacy. Patients may suffer from a lack of human touch when they access health services in the digital environment. This may impair their ability to collect health information and to appropriately use it to co-create value and to co-produce health promotion and risk prevention services. Health-care organizations should strive for increasing the patients’ ability to navigate the digital health-care environment and boosting the latter’s value co-creation capability.Practical implicationsTailored solutions should be designed to promote digital health literacy at the individual and organizational level. On the one hand, attention should be paid to the patients’ special digital information needs and to avoid flaws in their ability to contribute to health services’ co-production. On the other hand, health-care organizations should be involved in the design of user-friendly e-health solutions, which aim at engaging patients in value co-creation.Originality/valueThis contribution is a first attempt to systematize extant scientific knowledge in the field of digital health literacy specifically focused on the strategies and initiatives that health-care organizations may take to address the limited digital health literacy pandemic.

scholarly journals Self-Assessment Tool to Promote Organizational Health Literacy in Primary Care Settings in Switzerland

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (24) ◽  
pp. 9497
Author(s):  
Saskia Maria De Gani ◽  
Daniela Nowak-Flück ◽  
Dunja Nicca ◽  
Dominique Vogt
Keyword(s):  
Primary Care ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Organizational Health ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Assessment

Dealing with health information and taking care of one’s own health are key aspects of health literacy and a difficulty for nearly half of the population in Europe. Limited health literacy often results in poorer health outcomes. Health literacy is a fundamental health determinant, and its improvement provides great potential for addressing public health challenges. Health care organizations play an important role in improving population’s health literacy. Health literate health care organizations facilitate access, understanding and use of health information and decrease the demands and complexities of the health care system. Few efforts have been taken so far to promote organizational health literacy, especially in German-speaking countries. This project aimed at developing a self-assessment tool, which enables primary care organizations to assess and improve their level of health literacy. The self-assessment tool was developed and evaluated with general practitioners and community care organizations in Switzerland. Here the participative development process, outcomes and the three modules of the self-assessment tool are presented: (1) manual with detailed introduction and instruction, (2) checklist for self-assessment of organizational health literacy and (3) handbook with measures for improvement. The aim of this tool is that organizations are able to identify the need for action, plan and implement improvement measures.

Contextualizing Health Literacy to Health Care Organizations

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmela Annarumma ◽  
Rocco Palumbo
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Health Care Organization ◽  
Organizational Health ◽  
Poor Health ◽  
Care Organization ◽  
Health Care Environment ◽  
Inadequate Health Literacy ◽  
The Way

Parker, Ratzen and Lurie (2003) pointed out that a silent epidemic is affecting the health status of the American population, namely poor health literacy. Actually, inadequate health literacy is the main cause of the patients’ inability to navigate the health care environment, paving the way for inappropriateness in the provision of care as well as for poor health outcomes. Moreover, it has been esteemed that a third of the European population is not able to properly understand, process and use health information (HLS-EU Consortium, 2012). The same issue has been identified in several Asian countries (see, for example, Nakayama et al., 2015; Pednekar, Gupta & Gupta, 2011). What is striking is that—until today—the attention has been focused on the individual determinants of low health literacy, while studies concerning the organizational health literacy—that is to say, the ability of health care organization to establish friendly and comfortable relationships with the patients—are uncommon (Weaver, Wray, Zellin, Gautam & Jupka, 2012). This article is aimed at exploring the way health care organizations deal with patients living with inadequate health literacy. Drawing on the prevailing literature (Brach et al., 2012; DeWalt et al., 2013; Matthews & Sewell, 2002; Murphy-Knoll, 2007; Stableford & Mettger, 2007) the main approaches to improve organizational health literacy are examined. Then, a distinction between formal and informal tools to address organizational health literacy is suggested and the effectiveness of both of them is compared. The findings of the research suggest that informal tools are more common than formal tools, even though the former have lower perceived effectiveness as compared with the latter. Health care organizations seem to be still far from effectively activating comprehensive organizational health literacy pathways. There is a desperate need for systemic efforts to enhance the awareness of organizational health literacy and to encourage processes of change towards health literate organizational environments.

Exploring the meaningfulness of healthcare organizations: a multiple case study

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 503-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocco Palumbo ◽  
Carmela Annarumma ◽  
Marco Musella
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Multiple Case Study ◽  
Organizational Health ◽  
Public Hospitals ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Multiple Case

Purpose Patient empowerment has been variously depicted as a new paradigm inspiring the patient-provider relationship. To the authors’ knowledge, scholars have focused most of their attention on patient enablement. Alternatively, the ability of health care organizations to establish a comfortable and co-creating partnership with the patients has been overlooked. In an attempt to fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to delve into the meaningfulness of health care organizations, embracing the “organizational health literacy” perspective. Design/methodology/approach In line with the exploratory nature of this research, a multiple case study approach was taken. It concerned three large public hospitals operating within the Italian National Health Service. The meaningfulness of health care organizations was investigated drawing on the organizational health literacy construct. Findings The health care organizations were unaware of several crucial issues to improve their meaningfulness. Problematic organizational health literacy was found to prevent patient involvement and to negatively affect the quality of interaction between the patients and the health care professionals. Practical implications Inadequate organizational health literacy impoverishes the ability of health care organizations to empower the patients and to engage them in value co-creation. The institutional purposes of empowering the patients and involving them in the provision of care require tailored interventions intended to improve organizational meaningfulness. Originality/value This is one of the first attempts to examine the meaningfulness of health care organizations through the lenses of organizational health literacy. Both quality of care and health outcomes are expected to benefit from the enhancement of organizational health literacy.

scholarly journals Improving the Theoretical Understanding Toward Patient-Driven Health Care Innovation Through Online Value Cocreation: Systematic Review (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atae Rezaei Aghdam ◽  
Jason Watson ◽  
Cynthia Cliff ◽  
Shah Jahan Miah
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Patient Participation ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Health Care Service ◽  
Patient Empowerment ◽  
Self Management ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Value Cocreation

BACKGROUND Patient participation in the health care domain has surged dramatically through the availability of digital health platforms and online health communities (OHCs). Such patient-driven service innovation has both potential and challenges for health care organizations. Over the last 5 years, articles have surfaced that focus on value cocreation in health care services and the importance of engaging patients and other actors in service delivery. However, a theoretical understanding of how to use OHCs for this purpose is still underdeveloped within the health care service ecosystem. OBJECTIVE This paper aimed to introduce a theoretical discussion for better understanding of the potential of OHCs for health care organizations, in particular, for patient empowerment. METHODS This literature review study involved a comprehensive search using 12 electronic databases (EMBASE, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, PubMed, Elton B Stephens Co [academic], Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Accelerated Information Sharing for Law Enforcement, Association for Computing Machinery, and Google Scholar) from 2013 to 2019. A total of 1388 studies were identified from the database search. After removing duplicates and applying inclusion criteria, we thematically analyzed 56 articles using the Braun and Clarke thematic analysis approach. RESULTS We identified a list of 5 salient themes: <i>communication extension, improved health literacy for patients and health care organizations, communication transparency with patients, informational and social support for patients, and patient empowerment in self-management</i>. The most frequent theme was communication extension, which covers 39% (22/56) of the literature. This theme reported that an extension of communication between patients, caregivers, and physicians and organizations led to new opportunities to create value with minimal time and cost restrictions. Improved health literacy and communication transparency with patients were the second and third most frequent themes, respectively, covering 26% (15/56) and 25% (14/56) of the literature, respectively. The frequency of these themes indicated that the use of OHCs to generate new knowledge from patients’ interactions helped health care organizations to customize treatment plans and establish transparent and effective communication between health care organizations and patients. Furthermore, of the 56 studies, 13 (23%) and 10 (17%) studies contended the opportunity of using OHCs in terms of informational and emotional support and empowering patients in their self-management of diseases. CONCLUSIONS This review enables better understanding of the current state of the art of the online value cocreation and its potential for health care organizations. This study found that the opportunities for health care organizations through enhancement of patient participation and their cocreation of value in digital health platforms have been rapidly increasing. The identified gaps and opportunities in this study would identify avenues for future directions in modernized and more effective value-oriented health care informatics research.

Becoming a health literate organization: Formative research results from healthcare organizations providing care for undeserved communities

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 188-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prajakta Adsul ◽  
Ricardo Wray ◽  
Kanak Gautam ◽  
Keri Jupka ◽  
Nancy Weaver ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Community Education ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Patient Portals ◽  
Healthcare Organizations ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Patient Centered ◽  
Insured Patients

Background Integrating health literacy into primary care institutional policy and practice is critical to effective, patient centered health care. While attributes of health literate organizations have been proposed, approaches for strengthening them in healthcare systems with limited resources have not been fully detailed. Methods We conducted key informant interviews with individuals from 11 low resourced health care organizations serving uninsured, underinsured, and government-insured patients across Missouri. The qualitative inquiry explored concepts of impetus to transform, leadership commitment, engaging staff, alignment to organization wide goals, and integration of health literacy with current practices. Findings Several health care organizations reported carrying out health literacy related activities including implementing patient portals, selecting easy to read patient materials, offering community education and outreach programs, and improving discharge and medication distribution processes. The need for change presented itself through data or anecdotal staff experience. For any change to be undertaken, administrators and medical directors had to be supportive; most often a champion facilitated these changes in the organization. Staff and providers were often resistant to change and worried they would be saddled with additional work. Lack of time and funding were the most common barriers reported for integration and sustainability. To overcome these barriers, managers supported changes by working one on one with staff, seeking external funding, utilizing existing resources, planning for stepwise implementation, including members from all staff levels and clear communication. Conclusion Even though barriers exist, resource scarce clinical settings can successfully plan, implement, and sustain organizational changes to support health literacy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document