Joint Commission Highlights Patient Health Literacy
How You Can Help Overcome the Silent Health Epidemic
You often communicate vital information with specialized language, through complex documents and under extreme time constraints. Patients who don't fully grasp the meaning and importance of this information - whether that's due to a lack of medical knowledge, low literacy skills or the physical and emotional burdens of illness or recovery - run the risk of compromising their care. It's a risk that you must take seriously, says the Joint Commission, which describes American patients' difficulties in understanding healthcare as a "silent health epidemic."