What You Don't Know Can Hurt – Even Kill You

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“Is itpossible for a health care system to redesign its services to bettereducate patients to deal with their immediate health issues and alsobecome more savvy consumers of medicine in the long run?” Thisis an important question and even larger dilemma for the medicalprofession to solve. I would also state that the patients need topay attention as this poses a question for patients -“How do patients make goodchoices?”
Two different articles from differentperspectives are very interrelated and important for both sides inthe near future. Even being aware of one side before I wrote this blog on the August 23, the blog posted by Nancy Finn on September 3really brought the topics together for me. Both the medicalprofession and the patients have a challenge before them andsolutions are not easy to come by. This also brings another questioninto play - “Can both sides work together to solve this?”
I will say that for many, this will bepossible on both sides, but I wonder how we will bring those on bothsides that will oppose this very rigorously into the desired state oflearning. Many physicians are of the opinion that patients shouldlisten only to them, the doctors, and follow their directionsexplicitly. On the patient side, there are many that will have nodesire to learn and will insist on following the doctor withoutlearning anything about the reasons or the medicine behind thecondition.
The importance of health literacy ismore important today than in the past for several reasons. Peoplethat are literate become more adept at understanding healthinformation, tend to make more informed healthcare choices, becomebetter able to manage their chronic conditions, and in general havesignificantly better outcomes than patients that remain healthilliterate. Patients that remain healthcare illiterate have higherrates of medication errors, more emergency room visits,hospitalizations, and increased likelihood of dying.
A number of health policy organizationsrecognize that health literacy is important to individuals, andbenefits society because helping patients help themselves is animportant pathway to keeping down health care costs. Successfulself-management reduces disease complications and can cut down onunnecessary emergency room visits and eliminate other wastefulspending.
Organizations that promote properhealth literacy tend to do certain things very well. The ten (onlynine are listed) attributes in the report include items such as:1. Making improving health literacy a priority at every level of theorganization; 2. Measuring health literacy and using those measurements to guidetheir practices; 3. Taking into account the particular needs of the populations theyserve; 4. Avoiding stigmatizing people who lack health literacy; 5. Providing easy access to health information and assistancenavigating services; 6. Distributing easy-to-understand information across print,audiovisual, and social media channels; 7. Taking health literacy into account when discussing medicines orin other high-risk situations by using proven educational techniques,such as the teach-back method; 8. Training the healthcare workforce in health communicationtechniques; and 9. Letting patients know what their insurance policies cover and whatthey are themselves responsible for paying.
When you consider what is on the platefor patients, the medical decisions have changed from leaving thechoice of treatment entirely in the hands of your doctor to thepatient now needing to be informed and choose between treatmentchoices. These decisions are often life altering, and it is now upyou or your families to choose which way to treat your medicalissues. This change has occurred because for many conditions:(1) There are no clear-cut parameters with proven success;(2) The medical experts differ regarding the best way; and (3) Although there is an abundance of information about medicalissues, that information is often difficult to comprehend.
Nancy Finn accurately explains many ofthe decisions we as patients may need to make and the task does lookdaunting to say the least. What may seem simplistic on the surface,can be very complicated when it is your life on the line. Healthcareliteracy is important and if you have great doctors that are willingto take the time to educate you, the decisions will be difficult, butyou will have a solid base on which to make the decision.
This is why becoming an e-patient maybe a goal you need to set for yourself. Even then with all thediseases and types of illnesses, this is a formidable task. This isjust one more reason that e-patients form groups that can mentorothers.