Health Literacy Colleagues

I would like to call your attention an article, dated June 2, 2008  
(interesting dateline) in the American Medical news of the
AMA . It poses this question:

Should physicians adjust the communication level for each patient, or  
are comprehension difficulties so common that simpler language should  
be used with everyone?

Doctors are being urged by some researchers to administer  a short  
(on average, just under 3 minutes)  literacy test to their patients  
to increase the doctors' health literacy awareness. Others argue that  
while appropriate for research,  this does not make sense for  
clinical practice. They argue for plain language for all patients.

How many patients are proficient in managing their own medical care?  
One recent study found that

only 12% of adults have the skills to proficiently manage their own  
medical care.

The article mentions that the AMA Foundation will release a report in  
July  on assessing the country's health literacy.

You'll find the article at:

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/06/02/hlsd0602.htm


David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net



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