Health Literacy: Literature & Language Essay

HEALTH LITERACY
Name
Course
Date
Introduction
There are several challenges to achieving the best quality of health care. One of these challenges is the barriers and misunderstandings of low-literacy patients. Low literacy patients are patients with decreased ability to read and comprehend health-related information. Patients with low literacy have poorer health, incur high healthcare costs, and have higher hospitalization rates. It is important to minimize barriers and misunderstandings for low literacy patients. Below are some strategies to minimize this in health care facilities.
Strategies to Minimize the Barriers and Misunderstandings
Health care practitioners can consider using plain language when discussing health issues with the patients, especially when the patient has poor health literacy skills. Here, the health care practitioner will keep information and instructions straightforward and easy to understand (McCarthy, 2017). The medical practitioners can also opt for making use of images and graphics. This is because many people can easily understand the use of graphics and images. Here, the health care facility can consider giving pamphlets, which makes use of images rather than texts to convey important information. The health care facility can build connections with the community. The health care facility can partner with local community groups and use them to convey important health care information, as noted by McCarthy (2017). Health care practitioners can also recommend patients to use mobile apps. The patients can take their time to read through health care information from the recommended apps, hence improving their health literacy.
Langua...