Health Literacy In Medicines Use And Pharmacy A Definitive Guide

Health Literacy in Medicines Use and Pharmacy: A Definitive Guide highlights issues related to the medication literacy from the context of pharmacist and other healthcare professionals. There is a lack of adequate educational resources and textbooks on pharmacy health literacy. This book provides a clear explanation of medication literacy, presents different tools to assess health literacy, readability and comprehensibility of written medicine information (WMI), elaborates on different approaches to develop customized and patient-friendly WMI, and assists in the global effort for harmonization and availability of quality WMI. Written by experts in medical communication, Health Literacy in Medicines Use and Pharmacy will help pharmacists, other health professionals, educators, and regulators who may be ill-equipped to develop customized education material and to provide effective medication literacy information, especially for patients with low health literacy.

In 2004, the Institute of Medicine released Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion, a report on the then-underappreciated challenge of enabling patients to comprehend their condition and treatment, to make the best decisions for their care, and to take the right medications at the right time in the intended dose. That report documented the problems, origins, and consequences of the fact that tens of millions of U.S. adults are unable to read complex texts, including many health-related materials, and it proposed possible solutions to those problems. To commemorate the anniversary of the release of the 2004 health literacy report, the Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Health Literacy convened a 1-day public workshop to assess the progress made in the field of health literacy over the past decade, the current state of the field, and the future of health literacy at the local, national, and international levels. Health Literacy: Past, Present, and Future summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.

Every year at least 1.5 million people suffer adverse effects from medication. These problems occur because people misunderstand labels, are unaware of drug interactions, or otherwise use medication improperly. The Food and Drug Administration's Safe Use Initiative seeks to identify preventable medication risks and develop solutions to them. The IOM held a workshop to discuss the FDA's Safe Use Initiative and other efforts to improve drug labeling and safety.

Research conducted over the past two decades has shown that poor patient understanding of medication instructions is an important contributor to the more than 1 million medication errors and adverse drug events that lead to office and emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and even death. Patients who have limited literacy skills, who have multiple comorbidities, and who are elderly face the greatest risk, and limited literacy skills are significantly associated with inadequate understanding and use of prescription instructions and precautions. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality notes that only 12 percent of U.S. adults have proficient health literacy that allows them to interpret a prescription label correctly. Given the importance of health literacy to the proper use of medications, and the apparent lack of progress in improving medication adherence, the Roundtable on Health Literacy formed an ad hoc committee to plan and conduct a 1-day public workshop that featured invited presentations and discussion of the role and challenges regarding clarity of communication on medication. Participants focused on using health literacy principles to address clarity of materials, decision aids, and other supportive tools and technologies regarding risks, benefits, alternatives, and health plan coverage. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

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Health literacy-the ability for individuals to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services to facilitate appropriate health decisions-is increasingly recognized as an important facet of health care and health outcomes. Although research on health literacy has grown tremendously in the past decade, there is no widely agreed-upon framework for health literacy as a determinant of health outcomes. Most instruments focus on assessing an individual's health literacy, yet the scope of health literacy reaches far beyond an individual's skills and abilities. Health literacy occurs in the context of the health care system, and therefore measures of health literacy must also assess the demands and complexities of the health care systems with which patients interact. For example, measures are needed to determine how well the system has been organized so that it can be navigated by individuals with different levels of health literacy and how well health organizations are doing at making health information understandable and actionable. To examine what is known about measures of health literacy, the Institute of Medicine convened a workshop. The workshop, summarized in this volume, reviews the current status of measures of health literacy, including those used in the health care setting; discusses possible surrogate measures that might be used to assess health literacy; and explores ways in which health literacy measures can be used to assess patient-centered approaches to care.

Everything pharmacists need to know about drug information management Drug Information: A Guide for Pharmacists, Fourth Edition teaches students and professionals how to research, interpret, evaluate, collate, and disseminate drug information in the most effective and efficient manner possible. Updated throughout, the book also addresses other important issues such as the legal and ethical considerations of providing information, how to respond to requests for information, and how to determine what information should be made available. Drug Information: A Guide for Pharmacists, Fourth Edition covers essential topics such as: Formulating effective responses and recommendations for information Evaluation of drug literature The application of statistical analysis in the biomedical sciences Drug evaluation monographs Adverse drug reactions Medication and patient safety Investigational drugs New to this edition: Five new chapters: “Policy Development, Project Design, and Implementation,” “Drug Information in Ambulatory Care,” “Drug Information and Contemporary Community Pharmacy Practice,” “Drug Information Education and Training,” and “Pharmaceutical Industry and Regulatory Affairs: Opportunities for Drug Information Specialists” Key Concepts have been added to the beginning of each chapter and are identified with icons in the chapter text Case Studies and multiple-choice questions have been added to most chapters Twenty-two appendices include: Drug Consultation Request Form, Performing a PubMed® Search, Questions for Assessing Clinical Trials, and Questions to Consider for Critique of Primary Literature.

The field of health literacy has evolved from one focused on individuals to one that recognizes that health literacy is multidimensional. While communicating in a health literate manner is important for everyone, it is particularly important when communicating with those with limited health literacy who also experience more serious medication errors, higher rates of hospitalization and use of the emergency room, poor health outcomes, and increased mortality. Over the past decade, research has shown that health literacy interventions can significantly impact various areas including health care costs, outcomes, and health disparities. To understand the extent to which health literacy has been shown to be effective at contributing to the Quadruple Aim of improving the health of communities, providing better care, providing affordable care, and improving the experience of the health care team, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a public workshop on building the case for health literacy. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop, and highlights important lessons about the role of health literacy in meeting the Quadruple Aim, case studies of organizations that have adopted health literacy, and discussions among the different stakeholders involved in making the case for health literacy.