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Health literacy, according to the Institute of Medicine, is "the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions" and research has shown that patients are not all created equal.
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There are many resources that help health care institutions develop strategies for teaching people how to appropriately access health care and use it to their best interest. Following is a description of two sites:
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An asthma management program that includes telephonic case management, home visits, and physician incentives has saved money and earned accolades for Priority Health, a health plan company based in Grand Rapids, MI.
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To determine what barriers prevent patients with low health literacy from navigating a health care system, it's important for organizations to do an inventory.
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Education about skin cancer is still needed, says Linda K. Franks, MD, FAAD, director of Gramercy Park Dermatology in New York City, though it is common to see adults on vacation making little effort to avoid the known risks for skin cancer, which is exposure to ultraviolet radiation.
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At a time when surgery centers are facing Medicare changes and proposed freezes that are causing a seemingly endless financial struggle, a standoff that developed between a private payer and a surgery center chain in Ohio is causing some centers to call foul.
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Andrew Cuomo, the New York state attorney general, is going to sue UnitedHealth Group and four of its subsidiaries, including Ingenix, on allegations that they defrauding consumers by manipulating reimbursement rates, according to the American Hospital Association (AHA).
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Basic infection control practices are being reviewed in light of six cases of hepatitis C that have been linked with a surgery center in Las Vegas that reportedly reused syringes, with new needles, and reused single-dose vials.
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I'm following up on my last column in which I urged surgical programs to include surgeons in decision-making processes to help hospitals and surgery centers alike function better and become more cost-efficient. Talk is cheap, so here are some real-life examples:
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Identification and reduction of potential adverse events and patient safety risks are required by all accreditation organizations, but not all outpatient managers look at using information from near misses to develop performance improvement projects to address risks.
