Healthcare literacy

Healthcare Literacy
Name
Institution Affiliation
Healthcare Literacy
Introduction
Healthcare literacy refers to the capability to gather, interpret and understand crucial medical knowledge and services that are essential in health decision-making (Rose, 2012). In other words, individuals with a health literacy have the necessary skills to control their health and avoid disease. Health literacy is also a resource that people can integrate into their daily lives and use it in different health contexts (Brabers et al., 2017). This element consists of cultural and linguistic competencies, a focus on patient trust, respect and positive health outcomes, among others (Rose, 2012). Therefore, for health professionals to perform better in their work, they must possess a high level of healthcare literacy. The level of healthcare literacy also depends on a variety of factors, namely, age, education, race, income level, health status, language and so forth, which in turn affect people’s health (Rose, 2012). For instance, populations that tend to have low healthcare literacy include the elderly, those with an education below high school level, English as second language speakers, and low income earning individuals, among others. Healthcare literacy is therefore essential for patient care since every individual will need to find, understand and apply health information at some point in their lives.
The Impact of Health Literacy on Patient Care
Health literacy is critical to patient care as it ensures that individuals (patients and health practitioners) have a broad knowledge of health issues and topics.

This information is essential for both patients and physicians as they aim to receive or provide high-quality patient care (Health.gov, 2018). On the one hand, patients can use this knowledge to understand their bodies, as well as the nature and contributing factors of illnesses (Health.gov, 2018). For example, by possessing this knowledge, patients can link factors like exercise and diet to a wide variety of health outcomes, and subsequently, have a better understanding of how to take care of themselves properly. On the other hand, knowledge from health literacy can help health professionals understand how to handle a patient’s body and guide the patient accordingly (Health.gov, 2018). For example, physicians can apply this knowledge to treat a patient’s condition, before providing the patient appropriate medical advice. Health literacy is thus a crucial tool that provides health practitioners and patients with a capacity to maintain high-quality patient care.
Furthermore, health care literacy has a significant impact on health and illness since it determines the rates of hospitalization or use of medical services by an individual. In other words, the level of an individual’s health literacy determines how they will function or navigate the healthcare system. A low level of health literacy is usually linked to poor health outcomes and status, increased hospitalization, ignorance in medical conditions and care, inability to understand health information, and inadequate use of medical services, among other adverse incidences (Jayasinghe et al., 2016). For example, an individual with low healthcare literacy may choose to skip a crucial medical procedure, such as a mammogram or dialysis, which may cause serious health issues. Poor health outcomes result in numerous medical expenses for patients (Health.gov, 2018). Therefore, the level of healthcare literacy is a measure of how prepared a patient is, with regards to maintaining their health status. Patients with low health literacy are more likely to engage in avoidable hospital visits than their counterparts with a high level of healthcare literacy.
Healthcare literacy is also influential in patient-centered care as it determines the health costs for patients. For instance, people with low levels of health literacy are more inclined to use treatment services instead of preventive measures as they lack the knowledge to identify and manage illnesses (Health.gov, 2018). This ignorance on the part of the patients leads to more cases of hospitalization, as well as high rates of visits to emergency centers. Consequently, these frequent visits to the hospital and emergency centers translate into high healthcare expenses. Healthcare literacy thus determines the affordability of patient care.
Healthcare literacy greatly affects patient-centered care either as an aspect of risk or asset. As a risk factor, health care literacy pays attention to the quality of communication between physicians and patients (Jayasinghe et al., 2016). For instance, it determines how well a patient can share personal details with healthcare providers (Health.gov, 2018). Alternatively, as an asset, health literacy focuses on the abilities that a patient needs to make critical health decisions (Jayasinghe et al., 2016). For example, it shapes how a patient may manage their health or engage in self-care (Health.gov, 2018). As a result, health literacy affects the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients. For instance, patients with higher healthcare literacy find it easy to communicate with doctors, handle difficult medical tasks, and access health care (Jayasinghe et al., 2016). Individuals with limited health literacy tend to be less knowledgeable of their health condition and its supervision than those with adequate health literacy (Health.gov, 2018). Health literacy may, therefore, help minimize such HRQoL disparities.
Additionally, health care literacy influences the type of patient care that health officials offer. By having a high level of health literacy, health professionals may enhance patient trust, respect and health outcomes. Health professionals must consider health literacy as they care for patients. On the other hand, possessing limited health literacy causes a disparity within the health sector (Rose, 2012). In other words, if health professionals lack cultural and linguistic competencies, they will be unable to work with patients to enhance their level of health literacy. Consequently, an information gap emerges, which limits the type of care that patients receive. Health literacy is therefore crucial to general health practice.
Health literacy also considerably affects patient care by enabling individuals to engage in various acts that aim to improve their health. This engagement is possible through the different competencies (functional, interactive and critical literacy) within health literacy. Functional literacy refers to an individual’s essential reading and writing knowledge, which allows them to understand medical information (Brabers et al., 2017). Interactive literacy consists of complex literacy and cognitive skills that a patient can use in their daily activities and apply them to changing situations (Brabers et al., 2017). Critical literacy is a combination of high-level cognitive competencies, which a patient can apply to critically assess information and use it to manage circumstances and events in their life (Brabers et al., 2017). Health literacy is therefore essential for patient care as it involves individual features and social resources that allow patients to comprehend information that can shape their decision-making. Patients can then apply this knowledge to take control of their health in different ways.
Moreover, health literacy enables patients to play an active role in health decision-making. High levels of health literacy allow people to be actively involved in their health as they can gather, understand, evaluate and use medical information to make serious health decisions. However, according to Brabers et al. (2017), only one type of health literacy (critical health literacy) has a positive relation to a patient’s active involvement in health decision-making. Critical health literacy shapes the decisions that a patient makes since it entails information appraisal, which is central to how a patient manages and interprets medical knowledge and how they assess the relevance of that data to their personal experiences. Therefore, health literacy enables a patient to actively involved in the medical decision-making process by allowing them to interpret medical data and determine its relevance to their life.
Health literacy is also essential for patient care as it makes the health decision-making of a patient a systematic process. Health literacy enables a patient to go through critical stages of medical decision-making, namely, the exchange of information, deliberation, and making decisions on treatment options. The first phase (information exchange) entails a patient and physician interacting and sharing information about critical health issues, such as potential treatment options (Brabers et al., 2017). The second phase (deliberation) involves a discussion on treatment preferences (Brabers et al., 2017). The third step (making decisions on treatment options) is the final stage, which the patient and doctor settle on a preferable treatment (Brabers et al., 2017). These steps make the patient an active participant in medical decision making. Consequently, health literacy not only makes patient care a systematic process but also makes a patient play an active part in health decision-making.
Further, healthcare literacy impacts patient care as it involves a variety of numeracy skills, which shape how physicians provide care to patients (Health.gov, 2018). Examples of these numeracy skills include the ability to compute blood sugar levels, medications and apprehend nutrition labels. These skills are vital in essential health activities like selecting a health plan, making a comparison between different prescription drugs and measuring medicine (Health.gov, 2018). For this reason, health literacy determines the quality of care that health practitioners offer to patients. Another impact of health literacy is that it may bring harmful psychological effects, which may inhibit healthcare delivery for patients. Case in point, according to one survey, those with low health literacy skills are often shameful of their skills level and may choose to hide their inabilities for the sake of their dignity. By doing so, they end up preventing health professionals from understanding and treating their ailments.
Recommendations
Healthcare professionals should undertake a variety of steps, considering the problems of attaining health literacy. Furthermore, the practitioners should aim to improve health literacy within the public since it is their core responsibility. Firstly, the professionals should acknowledge and understand the relationship between different factors of health literacy, namely, language proficiency, culture, and educational attainment (Rose, 2012). By doing so, health professionals will be better placed to understand and manage the issue of low health literacy. Language proficiency, culture and educational attainment are intertwined.
Secondly, healthcare professionals should not only be culturally competent but also understand the impact of health literacy on health (Rose, 2012). For instance, physicians should be in a position to acknowledge the effects of low health literacy on medical care to customize interaction with health illiterate patients. Sufficient evidence indicates that by tailoring communication between doctors and patients with low health literacy, positive health outcomes will most likely occur (Jayasinghe et al., 2016). Similarly, health practitioners should be sensitive to communication problems, and patients’ adherence to medicine and treatment plans as these two aspects pose a severe challenge to low health literacy patients (Jayasinghe et al., 2016). Health practitioners should thus take actions to reduce this difficulty that low health literacy individuals face.
Thirdly, the professionals should welcome and implement creative and innovative mechanisms to make health information available to patients (Rose, 2012). As the professionals apply these approaches, they should recognize that low income earning individuals may lack access to the innovative mechanisms. For this reason, clinicians should ensure that the creative techniques have distinct mediums for the provision of health information. Case in point, the professionals, should use popular platforms, such as television and radio, print media, as well as private discussions to provide patients with the necessary health information.
Fourthly, health professionals should play a pivotal role in enhancing healthcare literacy (Rose, 2012). The professionals can do this by providing verbal or printed instructions to their patients on how to take medicine and maintain their health or applying innovative techniques, particularly the internet, to spread information among patients. This information should be readily comprehensible and practical for patients to use it with their skills. For instance, the data should be accurate, accessible and actionable. Other approaches may include educating patients on the need to maintain high healthcare literacy and supporting them as they attempt to achieve high levels of health literacy (Brabers et al., 2017). Health professionals can also collaborate with educators and other facilitators to help patients achieve a high level of healthcare literacy. For example, the practitioners can join forces with other experts to build skills for the public and increase their reach to patients, particularly the elderly (Health.gov, 2018).
Fifthly, as the health professionals aim to improve health literacy among patients, they should also consider that health information can be overwhelming for anyone. In other words, what an individual has learnt or experienced a few years might have changed since health science advances rapidly (Health.gov, 2018). For this reason, health practitioners should keep themselves, as well as patients in the loop of current developments in the health sector. Also, they should ensure that they provide medical information in a familiar or less stressful environment (Health.gov, 2018).
Conclusion
Healthcare literacy is crucial to patient care because everyone needs to gather, understand and use medical knowledge in their lives. This element is a critical factor in patient-centered attention as it provides individuals with the ability to understand a wide range of health issues and topics, determines the rates of hospitalization and influences medical costs for patients. Health literacy is additionally influential in patient-centered care as it shapes communication between physicians and patients, and the type of care that practitioners provide, in addition to enabling patients to play an active role in health decision-making. Other effects of health literacy include allowing patients to improve their health, providing a systematic decision-making process for patients and so forth. Ultimately, considering the significance of health literacy within patient-centered care, health professionals should take or consider specific approaches. Some of these include acknowledging and understanding the link between various factors of health literacy, improving health literacy among patients and maintaining cultural competency, among other things.

References
Brabers, A., Rademakers, J., Groenewegen, P., van Dijk, L., & de Jong, J. (2017). What role does health literacy play in patients’ involvement in medical decision-making? PLoS ONE, 12(3).
Health.gov. (2018). Quick guide to health literacy. Health.gov. Retrieved from https://health.gov/communication/literacy/quickguide/factsbasic.htm
Jayasinghe, U. W., Harris, M. F., Parker, S. M., Litt, J., Driel, M. v., & Mazza, D. (2016). The impact of health literacy and lifestyle risk factors on health-related quality of life of Australian patients. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 14.
Rose, P. R. (2012). Cultural competency for the health professional. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.