Children’s Mercy promotes health literacy

Medical terminology can sound like gibberish to patients and family members who are not health care professionals.

Staff at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics wants to eliminate the confusion. The hospital had Mary Ann Abrams, MD, a Pfizer visiting professor in literacy and clear communication, speak to nurses and physicians about the issue.

“We should all use plain language and we should all use teach back,” Abrams said.

Abrams encourages nurses and physicians to ask patients to explain back to them the medical information to make sure patients understand the health care professional’s dialogue.

“There’s a fear that it will take too long to do this,” Abrams said.

In reality, the teach back method does not take much additional time, she said.

Clear, concise language has been a goal for staff at Children’s Mercy for some time. The hospital built a patient education library in the downtown hospital in 1998.

“For several years we’ve had a strong interest in health literacy,” said pediatrician Sharon Wilkerson, MD, co-chair of the health literacy committee at Children’s Mercy.

Catherine Pribyl, RN, MN, CPN, also serves as co-chair of the committee. She said nurses play an important role in health literacy because they have so much direct contact with patients.

“We are really fortunate,” Pribyl said. “(Patients) might be a little intimidated by the physician but are more comfortable with nurses.”

Pribyl went to all of Abrams’ discussions about health literacy.

“I loved participating in them,” she said.

Fort Leavenworth resident Deidre Peterman knows the importance of clear communication between health care professionals and patients’ families.

Peterman’s 2-year-old daughter Laela and 1-year-old son Connor are patients at Children’s Mercy.

Laela became a patient at 4 months old. She was referred to Children’s Mercy for allergies but now sees a variety of specialists for several conditions. Laela’s diagnoses include chronic urticaria and dermatographism, small ventricular septal defect and chronic ear infections. Her physician also thinks she might have ketotic hypoglycemia.

Peterman said she has felt overwhelmed at times by her daughter’s diagnoses. The health literacy library has helped Peterman take a proactive approach to her daughter’s conditions.

“We’ve found a lot of things here,” Peterman said. “I can bring more to the table when we discuss (Laela) with the doctors….Without all this I think that I would just be lost.”

Peterman said the staff at Children’s Mercy does a good job explaining conditions to the parents. She said the nurses in particular are able to provide explanations at the parent’s level because they spend so much time with the patient and family members.

“The nurses have actually been phenomenal,” she said. “They do a very good job.”

Pribyl said she and the other nurses at Children’s Mercy strive to make the most of the opportunities they have to communicate with patients.

“We have the time to sit down and talk to the patient,” she said.

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