Explain Medical Terminology In Easy-Way.
1. Read the “Quick Guide to Health Literacy” and “Health Literacy and Health Outcomes” information from USDHHS (link on Moodle). Below, summarize health outcomes for patients with low health literacy.
The patients with low health literacy have poor health outcomes including increased rates of hospitalization and reduced frequency of using preventive services, lack of health insurance, lack of knowledge about medical conditions and treatment, which these leading to increased healthcare costs. They also have problems to report their health status, and experience negative psychological effects.
2. Think back to your IPPE and work experiences. What are two interventions that might help those pharmacies improve services for patients with low health literacy?
1) Provide with the interpreters. In the community pharmacy that I work, there is a patient who cannot understand English very well, the clinic would provide her with interpreters or her relatives (son, husband) translate for her.
2) Explain medical terminology in easy-understanding way. When I need to provide consultation regarding diuretics, I will describe this new medication as water pills, which let the patients …show more content…
easy to understand that why they need to take these medications during the day instead of at bedtime.
3. In AHRQ’s Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit, read through 4 of the “Tools” (pg 15 -82, try to pick ones in different categories in the table of contents). In your practice communicating with patients (either in school or out of school), which of these would be the most useful for you? Why? Which would be least useful?
I think the most useful one for me is the improve medication adherence and accuracy. And the least useful one for me is telephone considerations.
For the improving medication adherence is very crucial for patients because they are hard to keep track of all their medications especially they are on many medications. There are many inappropriate use of medications regarding to adherence. For example, some patients are overdosing of narcotics for pain. Some patients do not finish the duration of the antibiotics therapy. Patients will get better health outcome if they are better adherence to medications, which is especially important for low health literacy patients. For the telephone considerations, it is difficult to manage, especially in community pharmacy settings. People usually do not pick up the phone if we call them, and they always do not listen to the voice message that we leave for them. We need to deal with many phone calls everyday, sometimes it is hard to communicate through the phone. Face-to-face communication is more direct and convenient especially for low health literacy patients.
4.
As a pharmacist, you should be able to explain health topics to both colleagues and patients, using the appropriate terminology depending on the context. Below, write a paragraph explaining to a patient how statins work and why they are important for cardiovascular health. Be sure to have this paragraph at an 8th grade reading level or lower, and report your level below.
(Note: You may have to keep editing it until you reach your desired readability level. To view your reading level, click “File” -> “Options” -> “Proofing” -> check “Show Readability Statistics” (under When Correcting Spelling and Grammar In Word). Then, highlight your paragraph and click “Review” -> “Spelling and Grammar.” On the summary, it will show your paragraph’s reading level under the “Flesch-Kincaid Grade
Level.”)
Statins blocks a factor that can help to make cholesterol. Some of the cholesterols are important heart health. For example, high LDL cholesterol can lead to fat tissue block in blood, if the block is in the heart and vessels, these would lead to heart and vessel disease.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 7.1
The patients with low health literacy have poor health outcomes including increased rates of hospitalization and reduced frequency of using preventive services, lack of health insurance, lack of knowledge about medical conditions and treatment, which these leading to increased healthcare costs. They also have problems to report their health status, and experience negative psychological effects.
2. Think back to your IPPE and work experiences. What are two interventions that might help those pharmacies improve services for patients with low health literacy?
1) Provide with the interpreters. In the community pharmacy that I work, there is a patient who cannot understand English very well, the clinic would provide her with interpreters or her relatives (son, husband) translate for her.
2) Explain medical terminology in easy-understanding way. When I need to provide consultation regarding diuretics, I will describe this new medication as water pills, which let the patients …show more content…
easy to understand that why they need to take these medications during the day instead of at bedtime.
3. In AHRQ’s Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit, read through 4 of the “Tools” (pg 15 -82, try to pick ones in different categories in the table of contents). In your practice communicating with patients (either in school or out of school), which of these would be the most useful for you? Why? Which would be least useful?
I think the most useful one for me is the improve medication adherence and accuracy. And the least useful one for me is telephone considerations.
For the improving medication adherence is very crucial for patients because they are hard to keep track of all their medications especially they are on many medications. There are many inappropriate use of medications regarding to adherence. For example, some patients are overdosing of narcotics for pain. Some patients do not finish the duration of the antibiotics therapy. Patients will get better health outcome if they are better adherence to medications, which is especially important for low health literacy patients. For the telephone considerations, it is difficult to manage, especially in community pharmacy settings. People usually do not pick up the phone if we call them, and they always do not listen to the voice message that we leave for them. We need to deal with many phone calls everyday, sometimes it is hard to communicate through the phone. Face-to-face communication is more direct and convenient especially for low health literacy patients.
4.
As a pharmacist, you should be able to explain health topics to both colleagues and patients, using the appropriate terminology depending on the context. Below, write a paragraph explaining to a patient how statins work and why they are important for cardiovascular health. Be sure to have this paragraph at an 8th grade reading level or lower, and report your level below.
(Note: You may have to keep editing it until you reach your desired readability level. To view your reading level, click “File” -> “Options” -> “Proofing” -> check “Show Readability Statistics” (under When Correcting Spelling and Grammar In Word). Then, highlight your paragraph and click “Review” -> “Spelling and Grammar.” On the summary, it will show your paragraph’s reading level under the “Flesch-Kincaid Grade
Level.”)
Statins blocks a factor that can help to make cholesterol. Some of the cholesterols are important heart health. For example, high LDL cholesterol can lead to fat tissue block in blood, if the block is in the heart and vessels, these would lead to heart and vessel disease.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 7.1