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Health Literacy of Patients at Charitable Care Organizations
In 2015, TCCN members convened for an initial discussion about the health literacy of patients at charitable care organizations. Assessment and screening tools, communication barriers, training for volunteers, proactive ways to increase the health literacy of the children of patients, and the need for additional funding were all identified as important aspects of this issue.
During the 2016 session, we reviewed the health literacy recommendations from that discussion and TCCN’s current project goals for a recently awarded “Equipping Charitable Clinics to Improve Health Literacy Among Vulnerable Populations” grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee Health Foundation. Our conversation focused on resources, training, and technical assistance to enhance this work; partners who can support our efforts; creating a venue to share successful strategies with each other; development of a health literacy plan template; and implementation of a health literacy action plan by each TCCN member clinic.
Charitable care leaders shared the following thoughts and strategies about effective resources to equip them to address health literacy issues among their patient populations:
During the 2016 session, we reviewed the health literacy recommendations from that discussion and TCCN’s current project goals for a recently awarded “Equipping Charitable Clinics to Improve Health Literacy Among Vulnerable Populations” grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee Health Foundation. Our conversation focused on resources, training, and technical assistance to enhance this work; partners who can support our efforts; creating a venue to share successful strategies with each other; development of a health literacy plan template; and implementation of a health literacy action plan by each TCCN member clinic.
Charitable care leaders shared the following thoughts and strategies about effective resources to equip them to address health literacy issues among their patient populations:
- Increase awareness of the issue among all charitable care providers, staff, board members, funders, and partners;
- Share successful strategies that can be easily replicated by other charitable care providers;
- Draft information about health literacy that can be included in grants and used when communicating with funders. Highlight that
- income and insurance status impact a patient’s ability to receive specialty care and pharmaceuticals
- charitable care providers need extended time and capacity to address health literacy issues and link patients with other needed resources;
- Provide details about the various language lines available and how to connect to them;
- Seek avenues to increase the availability of medical interpreters and social workers (staff or volunteer);
- Create a template with various models of health education, including how often it is provided, the type of staff who provide the service (health educator, care manager, check-out nurse), roles of each staff (who does what to supplement the services of the provider), and the level of success that can be anticipated with each model;
- Consider what we can learn from other cultures in which people live a healthier lifestyle.
These existing resources and strategies were shared:
- http://www.goodrx.com/ - for price comparisons;
- https://www.milligram.biz/ - helps patients and providers find medication at the lowest price in a given zip code, translated in English, Spanish, Tagalog and Chinese. With our three data partners, Milligram searches prices of medications nationwide at 65,000+ pharmacies, offering the lowest prices on the internet;
- Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic uses volunteer pastors to assist patients with social issues;
- St. Mary’s uses a “health wheel” for patients to gage themselves. This provides baseline data. They have a question on their return patient form so that patients can gage themselves again. This can be compared against the baseline data and provides an opening to a conversation about health literacy and/or social needs;
- Servolution participated in a “microclinic” program that included a workbook, a competition, incentives, and had a teamwork/family focus. More information about this program can be found at http://microclinics.org/projects/americas/united-states/kentucky/
- Keystone Dental partnered with an agency to offer job skills to their patients;
- The Free Medical Clinic participated in the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) diabetes prevention program - http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/prevention/index.html
- Several charitable care providers have created a resource pamphlet with a list of community resources available to address patients’ non-medical needs.