Healthcare providers recognize their dependency on follow-through by the patient or lay caregiver to adhere to treatment regimens and to seek care when necessary. For the many patients who come into healthcare settings with inadequate literacy skills, this follow-through is often absent. Even patients who have doctorates in highly specialized areas such as physics or mathematics do not know the vocabulary of medicine. Ironically, precious few resources are devoted to strengthening this weak link in the healing and wellness process. It is often said that the first and most important step in solving a problem is recognition.
Every clinical encounter starts with diagnosis.
Clinical diagnosticians know the value and importance of spending adequate time and intellectual energy in identifying the pathogenesis of a patient's complaint. Clinicians are trained and mentored in the identification of physical and mental impediments to health. Because the problem of health literacy has now been recognized, this impediment to health can be addressed during patient assessments. Those of us in the pharmaceutical industry who endeavor to educate patients have also missed the mark at times. We have inadvertently crafted well-intended education materials using words that were incomprehensible to those we are trying to educate.