Background: Health literacy is defined as, “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.” A consumer health librarian and two nurse educators collaborated to develop and conduct health literacy workshops at multiple locations throughout the 1125 bed health system. The goals of the health literacy workshops were to teach health care providers skills they can use in the clinical setting to reduce the health literacy burden of their patients.
Description: The librarian and nurse educators planned and developed a health literacy workshop and offered CE and CME credit to attendees. Each member developed the workshop content for their health literacy specialty areas: overview of health literacy (definition, statistics, impact, and who it affects), assessment of patient literacy levels, demonstration of teach back, evaluation of written patient educational materials, and an overview of finding and evaluating consumer health information. The librarian scheduled two workshops to be held at the library located at the hospital’s main location and the nurses scheduled three additional workshops to be held at remote satellite locations. They scheduled the workshops over the lunch hour and provided lunches to employees. They advertised the workshops on the library’s website and through mass mail. Attendees completed an evaluation form following the workshop and again six months later.
Results Forty-eight healthcare providers registered and thirty-nine attended a session. Following the program, most attendees (88.89%) reported having a very adequate understanding of why health literacy is important for their patient population. All (100%) reported they agreed that using the Teach Back Method improves patient understanding and helps reduce hospital admissions.
Conclusion: This collaboration allowed the librarian and nurse educators to use skills from a variety of backgrounds to create a health literacy workshop aimed at health care providers. There was interest and attendance from multiple health disciplines. These sessions were effective in increasing health providers’ understanding of health literacy and its importance in changing their patient education practice to incorporate health literacy practices. The collaborators plan to conduct the sessions again in subsequent years during Health Literacy Month and to conduct health literacy tabling events for health care providers to visit and ask questions. The content is also being developed as an online educational option to be offered for CE and CME credits to allow for asynchronous learning of the material.