OUR MISSION

InfoDyne Health Literacy Project’s (IHLP) mission is to save lives by improving patient safety and quality of care through increased health literacy across the healthcare spectrum. IHLP will accomplish this goal through collaborative research, advocacy and educational initiatives, and by increasing the availability of resources that support health literacy efforts.

CHALLENGES

·         Addressing the needs of diverse and underserved US populations such as immigrants, incarcerated youth, migrants, people of color, pregnant teens and substance abusers

·         Disparities of health care related to age, educational attainment, speaking English as a second language,  health insurance coverage, income, and race/ethnic background

·         People with limited health literacy are more likely to need hospital care, have poorer health habits and less likely to use preventive services

In addition, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a component of the National Academy of Sciences, comments: “Comprehending medicine's arcane jargon is difficult for even the most educated of laymen. It's almost impossible for millions who can't read well, aren't fluent in English, or have vision or cognitive problems caused by aging”. (For more information, go to http://www.iom.edu/ ) 

BACKGROUND AND NEEDS ASSESSMENT

The Directors of IHLP were inspired to found this project by the stunning need recognized by experts in the field.  Poor health literacy has been identified to be a pervasive problem in our society which negatively impacts the ability of people to receive appropriate medical treatment.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH

With the support of the InfoDyne Health Literacy Project, the University of Illinois and Visionary Health Concepts published a recent research report (InfoDyne) exploring the information dynamics of 662  HIV-positive people (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1250318), that uncovered among other things, the deep challenge of health literacy in HIV disease and management.

PROPOSED INTERVENTION

IHLP was created to address the above needs through research and education and to engage in efforts to support further development of health literacy strategies. We believe we can support the institutions and agencies that work to insure that:

·         Government pays for research on ways to improve health literacy

·         Accrediting organizations require that schools follow national health education standards, from elementary school through college

·         Health organizations and medical schools teach health literacy and how to communicate with patients

·         Medicare, insurers and other health groups develop creative ways to communicate clear health information

InfoDyne Health Literacy Project will develop appropriate educational programs and materials for a wide range of community segments that help physicians, government programs and 3^rd party payors increase health literacy where it counts, thus saving lives.