Health Literacy Capability To Gather †Free Samples for Students

Question: Discuss About The Health Literacy Capability To Gather? Answer: Introducation Overview Health Literacy: Health literacy is the capability to gather information, read, understand and practice information and knowledge to make proper health decisions. Health literacy is helpful in simplifying information, circumventing waffle and encouraging patients to ask question. There are diverse factors affecting health literacy. These factors include health education material, clarity of the text, current health status of the patient, language discrepancies, culturally acceptable material, formatting and style of material, sentence structuring, utilization of illustrations and interactions during clinical procedure (Parnell, 2014). It is important for a healthcare professional to identify a patient with less health literacy. It is useful to provide care to patient which is understandable for the patient. It has been proved that for the patients with low health literacy, there has been improved health outcome, if provided care is tailored to their understanding. Health literacy can be provided to the patients in terms of correct medication use, correct dose and dosage of medication, utilization of health check-up, performing regular exercise and smoking cessation. Health education can be provided to the patients with the help of readable brochures and videos. These media proved effective in providing health education to the patients. Variety of tests including three minutes assessments, are useful for the evaluating capability if patients health literacy. Healthcare professional should intervene with patient on regular basis to understand insufficiency of health literacy in patient. Healthcare professional shoul d promote patients to ask questions. Patients like elderly, ethnic minorities, recent immigrants, and persons with low general economy are at high risk of negative impacts of insufficient health literacy. Hence healthcare professionals should give more attention towards such patients to reduce medication errors, to reduce frequent rehospitalisation and to reduce duration of stay in the hospital (Osborne, 2011). Along with reading about health and disease, health literacy should also consider cultural and conceptual knowledge. It should also encompass assumptions and language about health and disease. Communication skills in the healthcare sector should be compatible with language and culture. Communication in the healthcare sector should aim to reduce disparity in access of quality healthcare service. Interpreters have significant role in the health literacy and all human resources should be used to maximum extent. Cross-cultural work environment has prominent role in providing safe and quality healthcare. Health communication should be interactive process. Health literacy can also be described as set of skills, theory of behaviour change and social practice. Calgary Charter on Health Literacy stated that health literacy include reading, writing, listening, speaking, numeracy, and critical analysis, as well as communication and interaction skills. Benefits of health literacy include informed choices, of health service, lessened health risks, augmented prevention and wellness, improved navigation of the health system, increased patient safety, improved patient care, lesser inequities in health, and better quality of life (Zarcadoolas et al., 2012). Cultural and conceptual knowledge: Conceptual knowledge of health literacy comprises of fundamental literacy, science literacy, civic literacy and cultural literacy. Health literacy is a strategy for empowerment with crucial concepts and frameworks. These include basic or functional skills, communicative or interactive skills and critical health literacy. Health staff and health systems have significant impact on the health literacy of patients. Communication and assessment skills of the healthcare professionals have significant impact on the health literacy. This communication should promote shared decision making, information focusing on individual requirements and information which is understandable. Other stakeholders like media, marketplace and government agencies should provide information to patients in suitable manner. Health literate organisation status can be achieved by providing health literacy to healthcare workforce and giving priority for partnering with consumers (Mitic and Rootman, 2012). Health literacy can be defined differently for different stakeholders. Individual can attend health literacy applying skills to navigate, understand, analyse, communicate and use health information. Health care workers can be health literate by providing information to improve recognize and act according to the provided information. Health care organisations or systems can be health literate allocating indiscriminate, safe, easy and quality healthcare services and health information (Pleasant and McKinney, 2011). Health literacy in the context of language and culture : Health literacy is a integration of social and individual factors. Moreover, it is significantly affected by education, culture and language. There can be inequality in health literacy due to different cultures and diverse educational backgrounds. Difference in the education, culture and language between information provider and information user may also lead to problem in health literacy. Hence, health literacy is dynamic process rather than static process. Integration of health literacy and cultural and communication competencies at individual and organisation level can facilitate culturally responsive, equitable, safe and high quality healthcare services. It also promote effective communication and improvement in health literacy to enhance outcome in health services (Coleman et al., 2011). Health communication: Effective communication is helpful in equality in healthcare services and provision of safe and quality healthcare service. Insufficient health literacy is not only the problem of general population but also healthcare professionals may encounter this problem. Few healthcare professionals may not clearly explain health issues to the patients. Hence, such health care professionals should improve their health literacy before involved in patients health literacy. Even tough, both healthcare worker and patient are fluent in English, there may be ineffective communication due to difference in the cultural and conceptual aspects. Health communication is useful in solving complexities in the healthcare services and health promotion. It is also useful in the storing health information in the form of organisational intelligence for future use (Baker and Giles,2012). Miscommunication may lead to the lack of awareness and acceptance of culturally unacceptable aspects. Miscommunication between h ealthcare staff of different organisations may affect safety and quality of healthcare services. Along with linguistic and cultural factors, social and political contest also have significant impact on the communication in the healthcare sector. Hence, along with language barrier, others aspects like disempowerment and disconnection also should be considered for effective communication. Communication should also be established with patients outside clinical settings to facilitate better choices for patients and having more control over their treatment. Communication should be accommodated in such way that it should strengthen health literacy and consequently augmenting control of patients on their health management (Booth and Nelson, 2013). Working with interpreters: Language barrier is one of the obstacle for effective communication and health literacy, however it would have significant impact when there is communication with cross-cultural sectors. Hence, there is requirement of interpreters in in health communication and health literacy. Interpreters proved beneficial in protecting human rights of the patients who are unable to talk English. Interpreters deserve attention, respect and flexibility like other stakeholders in healthcare sector. It has been observed that, that there us underutilization of interpreters in healthcare industry despite its management. Interpreters have their usefulness in promoting well-being, protecting human rights and achieving cultural respect. Lack of interpreters may lead to the declined quality of care and associated health outcome (Phillips, 2010). Interpreters can be utilised in both ways. These can be utilized for communication from healthcare staff to patients and from patients to healthcare staff. Even if healthcare provider feels information to be provided to the patient is not complex, interpreter should be provided to communicate concerns and questions of patient (Phillips and Travaglia, 2011). Improvement in the health literacy can be achieved by incorporating information right from the university level, implementing framework and intervention points and developing health literacy program. Conclusion: Health literacy is an inevitable barrier for providing quality care to the patient. Adequate educational materials and resources should be used for health literacy. Health literacy is mainly required for patients of old age and children. It is also required for the poor and low socioeconomic class patients. Effective communication is the integral part of the health literacy. Incorporation of the interpreter is an added advantage for the health literacy. Health literacy is helpful to ease the procedure of medical treatment for the patient. It is also helpful to build confidence of patient in the treatment. In conclusion, health literacy is useful in providing holistic care to the patient. References: Baker, A. C., and Giles, A. R. (2012). Cultural safety: A framework for interactions between Aboriginal patients and Canadian family medicine practitioners. Journal of Aboriginal Health, 9(1), 15-22. Booth, J., and Nelson, A. (2013). Sharing stories: Using narratives to illustrate the role of critical reflection in practice with First Australians. Occupational Therapy International, 20(3), 114123. Kurtz-Rossi, S., McKinney, J., Pleasant, A., Rootman, I., Shohet, L. (2011, 29/08/2017). The Calgary Charter on Health Literacy: Rationale and core principles for the development of health literacy curricula. . from https://www.centreforliteracy.qc.ca/sites/default/files/CFL_Calgary_Charter_2011.pdf Mitic, W., and Rootman, I. (2012). An intersectoral approach for improving healthcare literacy for Canadians. A discussion paper.: Public Health Association of British Columbia. Osborne, H. (2012). Health Literacy From A to Z. Jones Bartlett Publishers. Parnell, T. A. (2014). Health Literacy in Nursing: Providing Person-Centered Care. Springer Publishing Company. Phillips, C. (2010). Using interpreters: A guide for GPs. Australian Family Physician, 39(4), 188-195. Phillips, C., and Travaglia, J. (2011). Low levels of uptake of free interpreters by Australian doctors in private practice: Secondary analysis of national data. Australian Health Review, 35, 475479. Pleasant, A., and McKinney, J. (2011). Coming to consensus on health literacy measurement: an online discussion and consensus-gauging process. Nursing Outlook, 59(2), 95- 106 e101. doi: 10.1016/j.outlook.2010.12.006.