A physician was talking with me about an article I wrote on metaphors, a few months ago. He agreed it was a hot topic, and an important one to stop and take time to consider: “Metaphors and analogies are something we do casually, without much thought,” he said. “Sometimes the metaphor did not give the […]
Clinical Communication
Make this one change to improve your patient education
A while ago, I wrote a piece called 5 steps to improve your patient education. I promised I would gradually dig deeper into each of the 5 steps. Last month I dove into the topic of patients’ background knowledge and how it can help you. This time, it’s about your subject matter. Your medical knowledge. […]
Infographic: 11 Health literacy tips for providers
October is Health Literacy Month, and we’re celebrating! We even brought you a present: a snazzy infographic. Health literacy is kind of a big deal (but you knew that already). Still, it seems there’s not too much talk about concrete, specific steps that providers can take – to do something about improving patients’ health literacy. […]
Why addressing unconscious bias can make people nervous
Last week I was in Baltimore, at the International Conference on Communication in Healthcare/Health Literacy Annual Research Conference. Every one of the keynote addresses discussed biases and stereotypes. Every one. (Biases and stereotypes was not the conference theme.) The importance of examining and addressing unconscious biases seems to be well understood in the research community. […]
11 Health literacy tips for Providers
Health literacy is one of the hottest topics in health. And October is health literacy month. So this month, we’ll be featuring it around here. A nurse manager recently talked with me about a concern she had about patients’ health literacy. A few weeks earlier, she’d been preparing to see a patient. When looking at […]
5 ways patient background knowledge can help you (and your patient)
A few weeks ago I wrote about 5 steps you could take to improve your patient education. I promised I would dig deeper into that material. That’s what this article is about. Specifically, we’re taking a closer look at patient knowledge. Let’s start with some data: Elisabeth is describing her first meeting with her new […]