Patient trust is an essential yet delicate part of healthcare, with many factors affecting just how strong that trust is.
One such factor that can dissuade a patient's trust in their healthcare provider is the level of understanding that a patient has regarding their health information.
It is estimated that 90 million Americans have low health literacy, an issue that can lead to confusion and anxiety should a patient not be provided with the proper tools to understand the personal information in front of them.
Becker's connected with multiple health system CEOs to discuss the importance of bridging the trust gap with patients through initiatives like utilizing AI technologies and health equity dashboards to improve patient health literacy.
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: How can we improve patient health literacy and increase their trust in health systems?
Rob Allen, President and CEO, Intermountain Health (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Rob Allen: Improving health literacy and simplifying the health journey are central to fulfilling our mission at Intermountain Health. Our commitment to health extends well beyond the walls of our hospitals and clinics and into the communities we serve. We strive to ensure our caregivers reflect these communities and offer culturally competent care, respecting and understanding each patient's unique journey. By enhancing health literacy, we empower patients with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions, which in turn builds trust. Trust is further strengthened through transparency, excellence, living our values, and investing in the communities we serve.
Marty Bonick, President and CEO of Ardent Health (Nashville, Tenn.)
Marty Bonick: It's critical that providers take meaningful steps to make healthcare easier to access and navigate — namely, investing in services and infrastructure that help consumers find care when and where it’s most convenient. At Ardent, we are expanding programs that help patients stay connected to care teams between appointments to manage chronic conditions, monitor health changes remotely and access needed services outside of our facilities.
We are also utilizing AI technology to help identify patients who may need assistance overcoming social determinants of health and connect them with community resources to help fill gaps outside our care – helping them stay healthy and out of the hospital. With an emphasis on technology and care outside the hospital, our teams are finding new ways to empower patients and create more access points across our network. Our shared vision as an industry should be to build a consumer-centered healthcare ecosystem that makes healthcare a convenient part of daily life.
Marc Miller, President & CEO of Universal Health Services (King of Prussia, Pa.)
Marc Miller: We recognize that health literacy can significantly impact the overall health of patients. Patient experience is a key area of focus in improving health literacy, as we aim to foster at each facility a culture of kindness, understanding and compassion. We hold our staff to high expectations — namely, to demonstrate service excellence, each and every day, at each and every encounter.
Secondly, we prioritize making care accessible, by offering convenient locations, creating referral infrastructures that support access to care, and employing bilingual staff at many of our facilities. And at the crux of this is our quality outcome monitoring. Our health equity dashboard provides insight into how social determinants of health, which affect health literacy, can impact outcomes of care. By incorporating social determinants of health into our readmission reduction and OB quality dashboards, we can monitor their impact on these quality outcomes. Where appropriate, we roll out updated approaches across our network in order to optimize outcomes.
Cliff A. Megerian, MD, Chief Executive Officer, University Hospitals (Cleveland), Jane and Henry Meyer Chief Executive Officer Distinguished Chair
Dr. Cliff Megerian: It's sometimes easy as healthcare professionals to get bogged down in our own technical jargon when communicating with patients. However, a medical term that's a form of shorthand for us can cause confusion and loss of engagement when used in a conversation with them. To promote health literacy, we can’t let that happen. Every provider, no matter their role, should strive for clear, succinct, jargon-free communication. The gold standard is to sit down, look the patient in the eye and have a fruitful conversation.
At the health system level, we can also boost health literacy through carefully constructing and curating the content we post online. Our websites are our digital front door – the content there should be engaging, easy to read and answer nearly every question for those who are seeking care. An approach like this yields the engagement we all want. At UH, for example, our Science of Health blog features content you might find in a national health magazine and enjoys well over 1 million page views each month on average. When content is helpful, people keep coming back, building trust and gaining insight.
Of course, building our patients' health literacy also takes place during the care journey itself. Navigators reach out proactively to our patients daily, educating them on the screenings they need or how best to manage their diabetes or COPD. Sometimes this takes the form of calls between case managers and patients along with community support agencies, which helps the patient have successful interactions with the agency. One-on-one education to go over care plans or to prep questions for an upcoming provider appointment is also a mainstay. In some cases, in fact, caregivers from population health accompany patients to their appointments to provide education and support.
Through a new initiative, we’re also recruiting and then placing community health workers in their home communities, where they can serve their friends and neighbors of similar background. Along the way, our bet is that these trusting relationships will result in healthier, more informed patients who take the lead in their own care — something we all want.