Assessing and Addressing Health Literacy: A Critical Skill for the Healthcare Team to Improve Patient Outcomes

Low health literacy is consistently associated with a greater risk of poorer overall health outcomes. Populations at risk for low health literacy experience multiple health disparities, including access to care, effective communication with healthcare providers, and decreased treatment adherence. The goals of this presentation are to familiarize practitioners with the impact that health literacy has on health outcomes and to provide evidence-based strategies they can employ with patients to improve patient-provider communication and enhance patient understanding of illness and treatment options through shared decision-making strategies.

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Learning Objectives:

• Understand the meaning of health literacy and its importance to the patient experience, across all patient populations
• Assess patient level of health literacy in order to enhance shared decision making, medical adherence and health outcomes
• Identify provider barriers to effective communication for optimal healthcare
• Utilize specific evidence-based interventions that increase self-management skills for healthcare interactions
• Become familiar with additional relevant resources

About Juliette Kleinman, LCSW, ACSW
Juliette Kleinman is the Senior Manager of VOICES 60+ Senior Advocacy Program at Hospital for Special Surgery and is an adjunct assistant professor at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. Ms. Kleinman specializes in gerontology social work. She has focused her work on reducing health disparities of ethnically diverse older adults through utilizing research and teaching evidence-based strategies to improve patient health literacy and health decision-making. She presents her work at Aging in America, the national conference of the American Society on Aging (ASA), for which she is also an annual peer reviewer. She frequently facilitates health education workshops for numerous older adult community organizations and for their professional service providers. Ms. Kleinman’s 20 years of experience includes work with Holocaust survivors, community social work, organizational development and training, and a private eldercare consulting practice. Ms. Kleinman received her Bachelor of Arts degree from George Washington University and her Master of Social Work from New York University.

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