HJAR Jul/Aug 2021

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS I  JUL / AUG 2021 17 What is the mission of the UAMS Center for Health Literacy? The mission of the UAMS Center for Health Literacy (CHL) is to improve the health of individuals and populations by making health information easy to under- stand and use. Toward our mission, we engage in these primary strategies: • Collaborative research to better understand health literacy, how it contributes to health outcomes and evidence for how to improve health communication. • Health communication services for healthcare providers and other pro- fessionals to address the critical need of closing the gap between the com- plexities of health information and individuals’ abilities to understand and act on it. • Promoting, through training and con- sultation, health education and plain language best practices for providers, organizations and systems. • Consulting on organizational policies and practices to address health literacy challenges. UAMS is committed to implementing these strategies internally and encouraging their use by other organizations. Our work in this field is supported by external part- ners who provide funding through grants, gifts and contracts. What attracted you to this field? I have been a nationally certified health education specialist (CHES) for more than 20 years. My passion to help people achieve better health is my professional “why,” and working with the CHL allows me to put that internal mission into action every day. On a more personal level, I have been the patient who, despite my formal education, has arrived home to relay the details of my clinical visit to my husband and realized I had questions or had mixed up a few details. As a mother to a child with special needs, I also struggle to keep up with the constant communication about her services. It comes at me almost daily from some combination of two insurance companies, four thera- pists, two pharmacies, countless health- care providers and a host of third parties who manage things like care coordination, orthotics and assessments. I recently tried to complete a required assessment online, and after three phone calls for support, learned that I cannot complete this online for a minor without additional permissions (read: more paperwork). This could have easily been avoided with clear instructions about completing the assessment. I often wonder howmany families miss out on the care they need because the demands of the system are just too much. Our work at CHL helps ease this burden for people who are ill, tired and stressed. Each of the talented people on my team has their own story, but we all share a com- mitment to empowering people toward bet- ter health. We see this idea come alive often during our field-testing sessions. We gather groups of community members and patients and ask them to review and help us improve health materials. In a recent session dur- ing which a group of cancer patients were reviewing a chemotherapy guide prototype, one of the panelists told us how much he would’ve appreciated having such a guide when he began chemotherapy. I recall his facial expression vividly, which seemed to say “That was a terrible time, and I didn’t get the information that would’ve made my life better. Please keep doing this important work.” Indeed, we will continue. Salespeople are trained to repeat important points of a sales call three times, because even when you are sitting across from someone and have their perceived undivided attention, sales experts know it takes three times for something to sink in. For healthcare providers, communicating health information to a patient is one of the most important aspects of care. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see in this area, and which communication methods have you found most effective for practitioners? Take a moment and envision the typi- cal clinical encounter. The patient in front of you may not feel well and could even be in pain or sedated. The caregiver who accompanies the patient may also be sleep- deprived and could be under significant stress — that may extend beyond the health situation to topics like how they will care for the patient after discharge or concern over their ability to pay for the care. All of these are barriers to learning. Layer on the fact that you are sharing information about topics that may be new to your learners and that it may be a lot of information. So those of you communicating with patients and families in the midst of these challenges have your work cut out for you. A common contributor to misunder- standing of health information is the use of jargon. But think beyond the scientific jargon (e.g., singultus rather than hiccups). Words like “onset” and “persistent” are not at all scientific, but they are used frequently by those in the healthcare industry, and the patients and public we serve would consider them jargon as well. Providers spent years of their lives learning a new vocabulary and using it daily to communicate with col- leagues, but a shift in language is required when communicating with patients and families. I mentioned the volume of information often shared during healthcare visits. This is another area for providers to explore