Healthcare Literacy – A Key to Success

Everyone knows that one of the keys to success is education and that holds true for family caregivers as well.  In our case, the terminology is called "health literacy."  What exactly do I mean by health literacy? 

It is generally defined as our capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and the health services we need in order to make appropriate health decisions for ourselves and our loved ones.  In fact, more than age, education or economic status, health literacy is actually one of the strongest predictors of our overall health status.

So the question is how you can improve your health literacy for the benefit of yourself and your loved one.  It requires a combination of reading, listening, analyzing and decision making skills and the ability to apply those skills to current health situations.  The problem is that typically we are forced to face our health literacy and the need to improve it at the worst possible time -- when we are facing a healthcare crisis of our own or that of our loved ones.

The problem is that family caregivers receive no formal training on health literacy.  Keep in mind that family caregivers are the backbone of our healthcare system, providing over 80 percent of all home care services for chronically ill, disabled or aged loved ones.

So, it is time to speak up.  As family caregivers we need to learn how to communicate more effectively with healthcare professionals, but unfortunately it is something we need to do on our own. What else is new -- just another example of the "learn it by doing approach" that we know all too well. It is definitely time to speak up, and trust me, we will.