www.healthliteracymissouri.org
Health Literacy Missouri (HLM), the nation’s first statewide center devoted solely to increasing health literacy, opened for business in St. Louis, December, 2009.
The group’s website, www.healthliteracymissouri.org, provides users free access to an online library of health literacy materials collected by HLM. The library has over 10,000 items for consumers to access regarding all aspects of health.
HLM – What do they do? HLM’s goal is to make healthcare understandable by all, so, here is how HLM is involved to meet that goal:
· Community Engagement – HLM believes that to increase health literacy, they must work from the ground up and engage individuals in communities.
· Health System Assessment - HLM will navigate and assess healthcare systems as a patient would. They identify and address concerns that negatively impact patient safety, satisfaction and patient/provider communication.
· Clinician Skills Training - HLM will teach clinical staff to develop and practice techniques to improve communication in several ways: HL best practices training, HL awareness training, staff communication skills assessment, plain language training, and use of standardized patients.
· Patient Skills Training - HLM will host these health literacy empowerment workshops to engage patients: “Straight Talk with Your Doc” and "Do You Understand? Health Communications for Everyone".
· Health Materials Assessment - HLM can help create documents that are easy to read through these different services: Plain Language Review, Pre-testing Health Materials, English to Preferred Language Translation with Plain Language, and Patient Health Literacy Assessment.