Literate Organizations Research Articles

Health Literate Organizations: A Synoptic Overview and Experiences from Taiwan

Health Literate Organizations: A Synoptic Overview and Experiences from Taiwan

Dealing with health literacy at the organisational level, French translation and adaptation of the Vienna health literate organisation self-assessment tool

BackgroundEfforts to address health literacy should favour a system-based approach with the dual aim both of fostering the material conditions and creating a work culture inside health care organisations that makes it easier for people to use information. The Vienna Health Literate Organisation (V-HLO) self-assessment tool is a German-speaking questionnaire for quality managers of health care organisations. Its objective is to provide a diagnostic of the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation in terms of health literacy. Our goal was to translate and culturally adapt this questionnaire for the French-speaking part of Belgium.MethodsWe followed the Translation, Review, Adjudication, Pretesting, and Documentation (TRAPD) team model for cross-cultural translation of questionnaires. We used cognitive interviews with quality experts to pre-test the translation.ResultsCognitive interviews allowed us to improve the translation by removing certain ambiguities, providing contextual clarifications or rephrasing some items in such a way as to render them more culturally appropriate. Local experts generally judged the tool to be relevant and applicable to their context. The insight gained with regard to their cognitive process when completing the V-HLO allowed us to identify possible barriers to the adoption of the tool (such as difficulties in considering staff literacy as a relevant target for the tool, fear of overwhelming staff, a feeling that some items fell outside the scope of health literacy and lack of attention for integration of services with primary care) and could contribute to the future development of the tool.ConclusionWe translated and adapted the V-HLO self-assessment tool for French. The French version of the V-HLO will now be implemented in our local context to assess whether it can make it easier for people to deal with the complexities of health care organisations.

A Celebration of Health Literacy Month at State University of Ceara, Brazil

The aim of this article is to describe the activities performed during the health literacy month commemoration at the State University of Ceara, Brazil, during its University Week Events 2015–2017, and to reflect about successes, failures and perspectives from these events. The events focused on five major points: defining health literacy; describing assessments and measurements of health literacy; the importance of health literacy on professional practice; when the principles of health literacy should be practiced; and the significance of October as Health Literacy month. The Teach-Back method of communication was introduced, which not only serves as the initial step in starting the discussion on the importance of health literacy for patient empowerment during patient-clinician encounters, but also to assist institutions in developing pathways towards becoming health literate organizations.

A paucity of strategies for developing health literate organisations: A systematic review.

IntroductionPeople with low health literacy are more likely to delay seeking care and experience adverse outcomes. While health literacy is the product of individuals’ capacities, it is also affected by the complexities of the health care system. System-level changes are needed to align health care demands better with the public’s skills and abilities. We aimed to identify the evidence base for effective strategies for creating health literate organisations.MethodsA systematic review and narrative synthesis of empirical studies was performed. Medline, Embase, PsychInfo and CINHAL databases were searched for empirical studies from OECD countries published from 2008 onwards, focusing on health literacy interventions at the organisational level. Analysis of the findings was informed by the National Academies’ five-dimensional framework for the attributes of a health literate organisation, which include: organisational commitment, accessible education and technology infrastructure, augmented workforce, embedded policies and practices, and effective bidirectional communication.ResultsThe title and abstract of 867 records were screened according to the selection criteria, leading to full text review of 125 articles. Seven studies were identified in the peer review literature. Adapting health literacy guidelines and tools was the most common approach to addressing organisational health literacy.ConclusionWhile the use of health literacy tools proved important for raising awareness of health literacy issues within organisations, these tools were insufficient for generating the organisational changes necessary to improve organisational health literacy.

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

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.

Systematically Addressing Hospital Patient Education

ABSTRACTThis study evaluated patient education materials at a large hospital. In this online field survey study, subjective plain language quality of patient materials was determined by health professionals’ perceptions of patients’ understanding of materials; objective quality was assessed using Fry and Flesch-Kincaid readability assessments. Subjectively, 74% of surveyed employees rated patient understanding of resources identified as very good or good. Objective plain language quality assessment revealed between 9th and 10th grade readability levels of materials. Improving patient education with attention to readability can help hospitals address the ten attributes of health literate healthcare organizations and improve patient experiences.

Evolvement of Public Open Spaces in Historical Environments of Yerevan City

In this article the role of public open spaces in Yerevan city as well as their correct and literate organisation from an architectural and planning perspective are studied and evaluated. In recent years a special attention has been paid to the development of Yerevan, the capital as well as other historical cities of Armenia in order to contribute to tourism development. This aspect resulted in the creation of new urban and architectural requirements. Among other issues the organisation of architectural environment of public open spaces - the role of urban design in our reality are also characterized. In these conditions urban and architectural organisation of public open spaces in historical cities are very important. Thus, the present study not only emphasizes the importance of studying the evolution of open spaces in Yerevan, but also stresses the significance of implementation of the international practice in this field in the city of Yerevan. The complex analyses, coordination and developing conditions of nowadays and historical requirements of historical cities are provided. The urban organisation and appropriate method selection for the current requirements of public open spaces are going to be analysed.

The patient experience of patient-centered communication with nurses in the hospital setting: a qualitative systematic review protocol.

Review question/objective The objective of this systematic review is to synthesize the eligible evidence of patients’ experience of engaging and interacting with nurses, in the medical-surgical ward setting. This review will consider the following questions: What are the expressed experiences of patients engaging and interacting in patient-centred communication with nurses? What are the beliefs, opinions and desires of patients, when engaging and interacting with nursing staff in terms of communicating in ways that meet the patients’ needs and wants? What factors do patients perceive influence (facilitate or prevent) patient-centred communication and their engagement and interaction with nursing staff? What are the experiences of patients of nurses listening to and responding to them within patient-centred communication with respect to their safety and experience of care? Inclusion criteria Types of participants The review will consider studies that include adult patients who are 18 years of age and older who have been admitted as inpatients to a medical-surgical ward. Studies and texts presenting adult inpatients to all other hospital wards settings will be excluded. Maternity, emergency department, operating room, palliative and psychiatric ward settings will be excluded. Emergency department settings are excluded as they may not include patients that are admitted to hospital. Operating room settings are excluded because of the variations in the level of consciousness that may occur to patients. Maternity, palliative care and psychiatric patients because of unique needs of care required by these patients. Studies that include patients with cognitive disorders will also be excluded. Phenomena of interest This review will consider studies that investigate patient experience of engaging and interacting with nurses at the bedside in the hospital setting and the meaningfulness of that experience.

Health literacy practices of physicians and patient care personnel in a hospital setting

Objective: Health literacy is a serious public health issue, and there are significant barriers to effective health communication among patients, physicians, and patient care personnel. We developed and implemented a hospital-wide health literacy survey to better determine the knowledge and practices of physicians and patient care personnel concerning health literacy in a hospital setting. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we invited physicians and patient care personnel from a pediatric hospital in the Midwest to participate in a health literacy survey. The survey combined open-ended questions and Likert-type items consisting of four domains: communication, decision-making, interpersonal skills, and health literacy knowledge. Quantitative data were analyzed - using SPSS software (descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s alpha, and t-test). Open-ended responses were analyzed thematically. Results: A total of 145 physicians and 891 patient care personnel completed the surveys. The results of Cronbach’s alpha, which was used to estimate the internal consistency of the scale, were 0.7 or greater for all domains. Most of the respondents had a general idea of what health literacy means, but only 37% of patient care personnel and 65% of physicians were able to define health literacy adequately. This study revealed several differences in health literacy perceptions between physicians and patient care personnel, but most respondents agreed that there is a need for health literacy training for health care professionals. Conclusion: The results of our study revealed insights and suggest that there is an obvious need to dedicate further efforts toward promoting health literacy. Health literacy training for all healthcare professionals is crucial to create health literate healthcare organizations. The findings are also useful for the health literacy group to plan health literacy initiatives and educational programs for healthcare providers to improve communication about health with patient and families.

Physicians’ Roles in Creating Health Literate Organizations: A Call to Action

Physicians’ Roles in Creating Health Literate Organizations: A Call to Action

Building a Health Literate Workplace

Approximately 36% of America's adult population cannot perform daily activities that require basic reading, writing, and numeric skills. Individuals who are at risk for low health literacy have demographics and socioeconomic backgrounds similar to those of individuals considered vulnerable by the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). Improving health literacy is a public health priority. Occupational health nurses can play a major role in assisting employers to build a health literate organization while improving the health of their employees. This article discusses attributes of a health literate organization, including organizational commitment, infrastructure, policies and practices with a health literacy priority, and effective communication at all levels.

Attributes of a Health Literate Organization

Attributes of a Health Literate Organization

Eye, Brain, and Vision

This book describes how the brain handles visual information, based on knowledge gained from a body of investigations carried out approximately from 1950 to 1980. Proceeding from an explanation of the general organization of neural cells and the way that impulses are transmitted, the author examines how these concepts apply to the workings of the visual pathways. Chapters about the eye and primary visual cortex describe concepts of individual cells and their increasingly complex responses to various visual stimuli. Subsequent chapters detail, in literate prose, the anatomic and physiological organization of these cellular elements within the visual cortex. The author explains how this architecture facilitates image recognition and stereopsis. The final chapters summarize our current knowledge of the neural basis of color vision and vision development, the latter based on results of vision deprivation. Special mention must be accorded the final chapter, because this area of investigation ultimately led to