Oncology nurses are key to patients’ literacy, but they need support
General literacy rates are widely understood as important skills that must be prioritized to ensure that people can live a healthy and successful life. In our medical field, we also have patient literacy, also known as health literacy,,,,, The CDC defines it as “the degree to which individuals are able to obtain, process and understand the basic health information and services required to make appropriate health decisions.”
Patient literacy is as important as overall literacy, but does not receive the same priority. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, only 12% of Americans have a patient literacy that is considered sufficient. This has a harmful and expensive impact on patients, medical organizations and society as a whole.
In addition to overall importance, patient literacy is particularly important in oncology due to the complexity, intensity and informative treatment of cancer treatment. Lower literacy levels in patients with cancer can lead to poor health outcomes, higher medical expenses and reduced patient satisfaction. On the other hand, higher patient literacy in cancer patients leads to better treatment outcomes, lower costs and higher patient satisfaction. Obviously, most medical institutions want patients to have higher health literacy. But, what are these obstacles? How to solve these obstacles?
The key role played by nurses
This is no surprise for anyone who plays a significant role in the health literacy of cancer patients. Nurses spend more time on patients than doctors, and for oncology nurses, this is not only daily, but throughout treatment, because in many cases cancer becomes a long-term long-term condition. Partly because of how much time they spend on cancer patients, and because of the often expressed vulnerability and gratitude of cancer patients, oncology nurses tend to experience deeper meaning and connection with patients. The time and special connections shared by oncology nurses with their patients inevitably enable them to play an important role in patient literacy.
However, there are some common obstacles that make it particularly effective for nurses and oncology nurses in general, in order to advocate patient literacy as effectively as possible. One is that despite a high level of medical knowledge, not all nurses have all the skills they need to fully promote health literacy. For example, they may lack the ability to assess the patient's health literacy level, or may make assumptions and overestimate the patient's health literacy level.
Another obstacle is the lack of cultural competence, which is a whole problem in itself, but also related to patient literacy. Cultural competence is the ability to recognize different cultures and their multiple beliefs, perspectives, experiences and traditions. This is also the ability to understand the importance of language and adapt to people's different English proficiency. The need for cultural competence is especially important when working with patients from underserved populations, as many of them may not be English-speaking people. A large percentage of oncology nurses face communication challenges with patients who speak English as a second language and they cannot always recognize signs of low health literacy in these patients.
Remedies to solve the problem
One way to address these challenges is to integrate skills related to assessment and promoting health literacy into nurse training and education. It is not common for nurses to receive literacy training in nursing schools for patients. Even if the nursing program course already includes content, adding health literacy training does not require a huge change to existing programs. It can be as simple as adding a course or two, and showing four hours of content can improve nursing students’ awareness and awareness of patient literacy.
As mentioned earlier, nurses are a natural position to advocate patient literacy because of how much time they spend on patients. However, the responsibility for promoting patient literacy should not depend solely on the nurse’s shoulders. Nurses have already taken on a large burden of care, and oncology nurses especially deal with the additional psychological burden of caring for dying patients, which leads to high burnout and high operating rates.
Responsibility for the patient's literacy rate should be shared across the medical staff, not only to ensure that labor is distributed more equitably, but also to promote the highest level of patient literacy. Fortunately, like nurses, there is a long investment in this area. Research shows that even a training intervention for patient literacy improves patient literacy awareness and skills among physicians and healthcare workers in general. The use of dedicated patient navigators in many hospitals is another promising way to distribute some of the patients’ literacy responsibilities.
Technology can also work. At this point, there is a risk of using AI for patient literacy because the information may be inaccurate. However, as technology becomes more accurate and affordable, there is great potential for using AI as a resource for patient literacy. For example, hospitals can be equipped with terminals that can evaluate patients' health literacy levels and provide basic information. This is not intended to replace in-person guidance provided by nurses and other healthcare professionals, but as a useful addition. Even something as simple as a TV channel dedicated to improving patient literacy can be easily integrated into existing infrastructure and can be very helpful in healthcare facilities that have not yet implemented this location.
Generally, all information provided to patients should be “universal preventive” approach, whether it is a dedicated TV channel, AI chatbot or traditional printed materials. This means the use of ordinary and everyday language in both written and spoken forms. This also means using a lot of images and graphics instead of relying too much on text. Finally, healthcare workers should never make assumptions about their patients’ health literacy levels based on appearance or qualifications (such as their educational level or current occupation) because these things can be deceptive.
Changing any status quo is challenging, but maintaining the status quo of low patient literacy in healthcare can cause great harm to patients and healthcare organizations. Therefore, investing in patient literacy is investing in health care itself. And, as the research shows, even small changes such as workshops for nurses, physicians and healthcare workers can improve patient literacy outcomes.
Photo: Hiraman, Getty Images
This article passed Mixed Influencer program. Anyone can post a view on MedCity News' healthcare business and innovation through MedCity Remacence. Click here to learn how.
