A few weeks ago, I read a tweet from Dr. Javeed Sukhera about terminology and mental health. The tweet had ‘gone viral,’ and it’s stayed in my mind since then. Next time someone says "mental health" what if we took out "mental" and just said "health?" "I need time off for my health." "I need […]
Patient Centered
How individual providers can help address health disparities
Addressing health disparities can seem overwhelming, especially at a time when health professionals are already under immense demands–and pressures to be almost superhuman. Yet often, the providers I talk to espouse values of equity and justice. National Minority Health Month draws attention to how Americans have experienced variable access to care based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic […]
4 tips for sharing information with a patient or client
Last week, I was at the Chronic Disease Prevention Symposium, where I gave a plenary session on health literacy. After my talk, there was time for questions. Eventually, one physician raised his hand. Taking the microphone, he said he’d appreciated my talk. Then, he asked (as closely as I can recall): What if we need […]
One thought on health communication and chronic disease
“Well, like the food for instance, it wasn’t a very extensive list of what you could eat, it was very limited and most of the food I eat wasn’t on it…” (participant, Carolan Gill & Steele 2012) You can’t be in health communication and health literacy without hearing about chronic disease, non-communicable diseases, and disease […]
3 communication hints for hotspotting teams
Hotspotting is hot! I have had friends on hotspotting teams telling me about it for some time now. Certainly there are other terms for the process of using claims data to identify those patients who frequently use healthcare systems, but are poorly served by them. It’s probably happening in a health system near you. Whatever […]
“Are we using technical terms that are not appropriate for any patient?”
“Are we using technical terms? That are not appropriate for any patient?” This was a physician group administrator talking with me on the phone. This group had reached out to me, and I was asking about the problems they were facing. This was one of the first things the administrator said. I hear versions of […]