TY - JOUR
T1 - Implementation of a routine health literacy assessment at an academic medical center
AU - Warring, Carrie D.
AU - Pinkney, Jacqueline R.
AU - Delvo-Favre, Elaine D.
AU - Rener, Michelle Robinson
AU - Lyon, Jennifer A.
AU - Jax, Betty
AU - Alexaitis, Irene
AU - Cassel, Kari
AU - Ealy, Kacy
AU - Hagen, Melanie Gross
AU - Wright, Erin M.
AU - Chang, Myron
AU - Radhakrishnan, Nila S.
AU - Leverence, Robert R.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 National Association for Healthcare Quality.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Limited health literacy is a common but often unrecognized problem associated with poor health outcomes. Well-validated screening tools are available to identify and provide the opportunity to intervene for at-risk patients in a resource-efficient manner. This is a multimethod study describing the implementation of a hospital-wide routine health literacy assessment at an academic medical center initiated by nurses in April 2014 and applied to all adult inpatients. Results were documented in the electronic health record, which then generated care plans and alerts for patients who screened positive. A nursing survey showed good ease of use and adequate patient acceptance of the screening process. Six months after hospital-wide implementation, retrospective chart abstraction of 1,455 patients showed that 84% were screened. We conclude that a routine health literacy assessment can be feasibly and successfully implemented into the nursing workflow and electronic health record of a major academic medical center.
AB - Limited health literacy is a common but often unrecognized problem associated with poor health outcomes. Well-validated screening tools are available to identify and provide the opportunity to intervene for at-risk patients in a resource-efficient manner. This is a multimethod study describing the implementation of a hospital-wide routine health literacy assessment at an academic medical center initiated by nurses in April 2014 and applied to all adult inpatients. Results were documented in the electronic health record, which then generated care plans and alerts for patients who screened positive. A nursing survey showed good ease of use and adequate patient acceptance of the screening process. Six months after hospital-wide implementation, retrospective chart abstraction of 1,455 patients showed that 84% were screened. We conclude that a routine health literacy assessment can be feasibly and successfully implemented into the nursing workflow and electronic health record of a major academic medical center.
KW - Health literacy screening
KW - Hospital implementation
KW - Inpatient assessment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85056646035&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85056646035&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1097/JHQ.0000000000000116
DO - 10.1097/JHQ.0000000000000116
M3 - Article
C2 - 29166290
AN - SCOPUS:85056646035
SN - 1062-2551
VL - 40
SP - 247
EP - 255
JO - Journal for Healthcare Quality
JF - Journal for Healthcare Quality
IS - 5
ER -