Health Literacy Implications for Health Care Reform Workshop Summary (2011) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 Health Literacy and Health Care Reform
2 Health Literacy and Health Care Reform
Pages 5-18
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 5... ...
HEALTH LITERACY AND THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT Stephen Somers, Ph.D., and Roopa Mahadevan, M.A. Center for Health Care Strategies The ACA is landmark legislation designed to increase access to health care coverage for millions of Americans.
|
From page 6... ...
Indirect Provisions Indirect provisions for health literacy fall into six major health and health care domains: • overage expansion: Enrolling, reaching out to, and delivering C care to health insurance coverage expansion populations in 2014 and beyond; • quity: Assuring equity in health and health care for all communi E ties and populations; • orkforce: Training providers on cultural competency and diver W sifying the health care provider workforce; • atient information: At appropriate reading levels in print and P electronic media; • Public health and wellness; and • uality improvement: Innovation to create more effective and Q efficient models of care, particularly for individuals with chronic illnesses requiring extensive self-management. 2 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Public Law 148, 111th Cong., 2nd sess.
|
From page 7... ...
The ACA has provisions addressing continuing medical education support for providers to minority, rural, and/or underserved populations and areas; cultural competency and disabilities training curricula in medical and health professions schools; and diversifying the professional and paraprofessional health care workforce. "Cultural and linguistic appropriateness" is a frequent condition of eligibility for the workforce grant opportunities.
|
From page 8... ...
Public Health and Wellness Public health is heavily reliant on the ability to get information out to the population as a whole, and for the population to understand it, Somers said. There are a number of prevention and wellness provisions throughout the ACA that offer opportunities for health literacy interventions, such as increased coverage of clinical preventive services under Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance; personalized wellness programs by employers and insurers; and expanded federal grants for chronic disease prevention and other public health issues.
|
From page 9... ...
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health, Anand Parekh, began by describing four major health policy initiatives released in 2010 that he said reflect a collective recognition that improving health literacy is essential to improving health and health care: the ACA; the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy (HHS, 2010)
|
From page 10... ...
o romoting changes in the health care delivery system that improve P health information, communication, informed decision making, and ac cess to health services (Goal 2) The Plain Writing Act of 2010 • igned by President Obama, October 2010 S • o improve the effectiveness and accountability of federal agencies to the T public by promoting clear government communication that the public can understand and use • ssentially a mandate for the federal government to implement important E components of Goal 1 of the National Action Plan (above)
|
From page 11... ...
Shared Decision-Making Section 3506 of the ACA requires HHS to "facilitate collaborative pro cesses between patients, caregivers, authorized representatives, and clinicians that enables decision-making, provides information about tradeoffs among treatment options, and facilitates the incorporation of patient preferences and values into the medical plan." The ACA further authorizes a "program to update patient decision aids to assist health care providers and patients. Decision aids must reflect diverse levels of health literacy."6 AHRQ and the HHS Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion have collaborated to develop personalized decision support for clinical preventive services.
|
From page 12... ...
, in collaboration with the HHS Office of Minority Health and others, has formed a workforce workgroup to address approximately 20 cultural and lin guistic competency components of the ACA, including health literacy. AHRQ has developed a Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit 9 that provides guidance on how to improve written and spoken patient communication.
|
From page 13... ...
The ACA, the National Action Plan, the Plain Writing Act, and Healthy People 2020 all offer important guidance and tools for leveraging these existing resources at HHS. One of the most important resources is the HHS-wide interagency working group on health literacy, which includes representatives from the Office of the Director of each of the HHS agencies.
|
From page 14... ...
The Plain Writing Act is also without enforcement or consequences for failing to fulfill the intent of the law. The burden is on those both in government and outside of government to continue to be strong advocates for health literacy initiatives.
|
From page 15... ...
These activities, which incorporate sig nificant health literacy elements, are not called "health literacy," however. If one were to ask health plans if they had health literacy programs, they might say no because they call these initiatives "quality improvement." Somers said that health plans should implement the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA)
|
From page 16... ...
Parekh noted that healthfinder.gov is already an excellent portal that, in light of no new funding, could be built upon with assets from across the HHS agencies. Moderator Isham referred to the Health Care Ecology Model by Kerr White, and suggested there is an opportunity for an ecology of health information or an ecology of health decisions model, looking at where people are making decisions (e.g., in their homes, in clinical settings)
|
From page 17... ...
The challenge is to match these with how people in the target populations are actually using health information resources and making health decisions.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.