Panel Discussion: Communication Between Patients and Health Care Providers: October 15 - 22, 2007
From LiteracyTentWiki
Discussion Announcement
This panel will include adult learners, literacy teachers, health care providers, and a health educator. They will discuss the challenges and supports to communicating with health care providers for adults with lower literacy skills.
The learners will talk about their experiences communicating with health care providers during appointments, and what kinds of things make it easier or harder to learn the health information that is conveyed; teachers will talk about how they might be able to support their students in preparing them for confident and effective health communication; and health care providers and educators can listen to this and discuss how they can adjust their communication style to make it easier and more effective for their lower literacy patients. In the course of this discussion, we will address how literacy teachers and programs can collaborate with health care providers and educators in order to support better communication.
Discussion Preparation
There is no reading to prepare for this discussion, but I do want everyone to think about their own personal experiences in communicating with their doctor, or a technician or specialist. For health care providers and educators, think about your experiences communicating with patients who may have lower literacy and English speaking skills. For teachers, think about how you can play a role in helping students to communicate more effectively. For administrative health people, think about the systems in your center that can help or hinder effective communication of health information. Please think about oral and written communication, what makes them more effective, and what makes them fall flat.
Guest Biographies
Lisa M. Jones, MD is a board certified Obstetrician Gynecologist with considerable experience working with the community health center patient populations. She holds a Masters degree in Education from the University of Michigan. This unique background gives her the tools necessary to develop, present and evaluate patient education. Dr. Jones’ skill set includes a thorough understanding of preventative care, knowledge of adult educational theory and a familiarity with diverse patient populations. Additionally, Dr Jones is an experienced health education speaker having presented for the March of Dimes, YWCA, developed and taught adult health education programs and authored patient education materials.
Anne Zettek-Sumner, RN, M.Ed. has worked for 30 + years as a Registered Nurse in a wide variety of health care settings - acute care, college health, community health, Internal Medicine and Cardiology practice - most recently as Clinical Program Coordinator in a non-profit health education and resource center in central Mass. She also has 10+ years as freelance medical writer and health education consultant. Her special skills and interests include video production and evaluation, instructional design, media evaluation, and large health fairs/events.
Ms. Patricia Arnal is a Registered Nurse from Mexico, and for the past six years has been the Health Instructor for the El Paso Community College/Community Education Program. As a Health Instructor Ms. Arnal has had the opportunity to distribute vital information related to health and nutrition to the El Paso community and surrounding areas.
Joanne Brown retired from Drake’s English Department four years ago. While at Drake, she taught courses in writing short fiction, business writing, American drama, and adolescent literature. She has also worked as a writing consultant; her articles and short fiction have appeared in several journals, and she is the author three books of literary criticism about adolescent literature. For the past two years, she has served as a tutor at the Drake Adult Literacy Center. Before teaching college students, Joanne was Education Director at the Des Moines Playhouse, where she taught children’s drama classes and appeared in many plays. She and her husband Milt have three married children and six grandchildren.
Barbara Bayldon, M.D. is an Assistant professor at Northwestern University and Head of the Section of Primary Care at Children's Memorial Hospital.in Chicago She has spent the past 20 years working with underserved populations and those with low health literacy. In the past 5 years she has been trained in the AMA Health Literacy Train the Trainer program, become involved both on the national level with the American Academy of Pediatrics Project Advisory Committee on Health Literacy, given multiple workshops at the state AAP level on Health Literacy and is working in her hospital and clinical setting on programs aimed at bridging the gap between medical care health literacy requiremnts and the health literacy level of her patient population. With a colleague she has created a volunteer program to aid patients and families and allow them to become partners in medical decision making and management of their children's health.
