Improving Health Literacy at the Organizational Level

The lack of health literacy is associated with higher mortality, more frequent hospitalizations, and increased use of healthcare services. Organizations must create an environment that prepares a workforce with a heightened sensitivity for health literacy.

The local Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) program desired to have an organized plan to address health literacy.

Twelve interdisciplinary team members of a Program for all Inclusive Care of the Elderly completed the Assessment Questionnaire from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit. Once the questionnaire was complete organizational priorities were identified and the AHRQ Toolkit was utilized to develop next steps.

The organization identified three areas as priorities: development of a health literacy team, improving spoken communication with patients and care givers, and improving written information given via letters and home instructions.

Organizations, nursing, and quality care leaders may find these results useful to assess organizational literacy and develop improvement plans.

Implementation of the AHRQ Health literacy Universal Precautions toolkit may increase understanding and training health literacy, improve passage of health care information and increase patient safety.