Health Literacy

Empowering patients to have greater agency in, and control over health decisions.

A patient’s health literacy is their ability to read, understand, and use health care information to make informed decisions and modify behaviours that affect their personal healthcare needs. Promoting health literacy creates a more collaborative care environment, one that empowers patients to have greater agency in, and control over, their own care decisions.

CCMI’s Health Literacy offerings emphasize the importance of being able to support patients and communicate clearly so that patients and family members can truly participate in care. Participants will gain an understanding of health literacy concepts and learn practical skills for engaging with patients to ensure clear and effective communication.

Services

Health Literacy Overview Webinar

 60 minutes

Appropriate for wide range of professionals and peer helpers.

This overview provides training in the concept of health literacy and an introduction to teach-back for understanding.

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Health Literacy Workshop or Webinar Package for Front-Line Clinicians:

  half-day (4 hrs)

  Appropriate for front-line clinicians

This workshop provides training in fundamental concepts from the health literacy universal precautions and teaches core skills including how to use resources, plain language, teach-back, and ask-offer-ask.

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Health Literacy Workshop or Webinar Package for Clinical Educators
and Health Literacy Leads:

  One-day (8 hours) workshop or 3 x 3-hour webinars

  Appropriate for clinical educators and health literacy leads who have opportunities to assess and enhance their organization’s health literacy programs at a system level. Also appropriate for people who design patient education material, or have input in its design, review, or promotion.

This workshop provides training in fundamental concepts from the health literacy universal precautions and includes content on plain language and design (PEMAT), health literacy and medication adherence. Learners will complete a project that will engage them in assessment and action to improve health literacy at organizational and community levels. They will also be taught cores skills including how to use resources, plain language, teach-back, and ask-offer-ask.

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Health Literacy Trainer Course

  Two days (16 hours)

  Appropriate for clinical educators

This workshop will prepare educators to deliver the Health Literacy Overview and the half-day Workshop for Front-Line Clinicians.

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Resources

Teach Back Guide

Teach Back is an evidence-based technique to confirm that a message has been understood. It has been shown to help people improve blood sugar control and avoid readmission in heart failure, and to decrease time for people taking a blood-thinning medication to get the medication dose right. Download our Teach Back Guide.

Videos

Teach-Back for Understanding

In this video Connie Davis explains how to use teach-back, a method to check that information has been communicated clearly. To download the handout, visit the handouts section on this page.

Health Literacy Umbrella

CCMI worked with health care teams in BC to develop this video, describing the “Health Literacy Umbrella”:

Worksheets

Health and Wellness Advertising Claims Assessment Worksheet

One of the practical tools that we have partnered to develop is a worksheet for assessing health and wellness advertisements.

Click here to download: Health and Wellness Advertising Claims: So, Is it Truthful?

This tool was developed collaboratively with input from the public and professionals. We thank everyone who reviewed drafts and provided valuable feedback, including:

  • Plain Language Group of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, Toronto, ON

The working group provided oversight and leadership:

  • Bernie Garrett, Associate Professor, UBC School of Nursing, Vancouver, BC
  • Elsie Petch, MHSc, Health Literacy Consultant, Toronto, ON
  • Lea Elcombe, Facilitator of the Plain Language Group of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, Toronto, ON
  • Alifa Khan, Patient Advocate, Orangeville, ON
  • Denielle Wiebe, Graphic Designer, CCMI, Quesnel, BC
  • Connie Davis, Development Project Lead, CCMI, Hope BC

BRAIN Decision Making Worksheet

One of the practical tools that we have developed is the BRAIN Decision Making Worksheet, adapted with permission from the International Childbirth Association.

Download the Brain Decision Making Worksheet here:
BRAIN Decision Making Worksheet (General)