Page 92 - Health Literacy, eHealth, and Communication: Putting the Consumer First: Workshop Summary

Health Literacy, eHealth, and Communication: Putting the Consumer First: Workshop Summary

eMeRGinG tooLS AnD StRAteGieS

icons, including a self-calculating feature, and adding voice instructions
and results. Clear presentation of results is important. For example, a
person with limited literacy will find it easier to understand a message
that says “Your blood sugar is too high” than one that provides a number
that must be interpreted. Instructions should be clear and easy to follow,
using simple print and video tutorials with illustrations for each step of
use. One should avoid very small fonts and technical medical language,
for instance. Critical components or warnings should be emphasized.
Brach concluded by saying that, in thinking about the future it is
important to start incorporating literacy and health literacy considerations
into the development of personal health records and ePrescribing.

DISCuSSION

George isham, M.D., M.S.
HealthPartners
Moderator

One audience member said that many of her patients who use the
Internet have difficulty so they look for a telephone number to call to
obtain assistance. Yet, she said, it is usually not possible to find a tele-
phone number. The audience member urged AHRQ to be careful about
posting guidelines on telephone use if there is not someone available to
receive calls. Brach agreed that it was important to have someone avail-
able to answer calls.
Another participant asked if Brach could elaborate on what she meant
when she talked about making information culturally relevant. Brach
responded that some of the things one might look for are whether the
graphics are relevant to the population. Unfortunately, there is not a sci-
ence base that one can point to and say, if one follows this checklist, one
will be culturally competent. It is a very complex issue.
Another audience member pointed out that there does not seem to be
a consensus about what the three to five actionable items are that could
lead to quality improvement in various areas. What is it that everyone
needs to know how to do in order to improve diabetes outcomes, for
example, or asthma outcomes? It is a great deal easier to build platforms
for communicating if one agrees on the actionable points. Any leadership
or guidance that AHRQ can provide on how to do a better job of coming
up with some common consensus about what one needs to know about
health literacy would be very helpful.
Brach responded that AHRQ and those in the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) working on healthfinder.gov have been in the
process of building consensus on the top prevention and health promo-

Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.