Plain and Simple: Strategies for Improving Health Literacy-Plain and Simple: Strategies for Improving Health Literacy

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The webinar “Plain and Simple Strategies for Improving Health Literacy” focused on how oncology teams can better communicate with patients and caregivers. Speaker Elaine DeMeyer explained that health literacy is not the same as general reading ability, and that stress, cancer diagnosis, language barriers, and complex medical terms can all reduce understanding. She highlighted how low health literacy is linked to poorer outcomes, including more emergency visits, more hospitalizations, fewer screenings, later-stage diagnoses, and more medication errors.<br /><br />DeMeyer presented five practical strategies: use universal precautions by assuming everyone may need help understanding; communicate in plain language; constantly assess understanding; use teach-back to confirm patients can explain instructions in their own words; and encourage Ask Me 3 so patients ask, “What is my main problem? What do I need to do? Why is it important?” She also described a health literacy gap assessment tool for organizations to evaluate weaknesses and create improvement plans.<br /><br />During Q&A, she recommended a team-based approach to completing the assessment, using leadership support and existing data to propose realistic fixes. She advised starting staff education with basic health literacy concepts and using phased training with champions to spread best practices.

Keywords

health literacy

oncology communication

plain language

teach-back method

universal precautions

Ask Me 3

patient understanding

health literacy assessment