Health Literacy in the Inpatient Setting: Implications for Patient Care and Patient Safety

Abstract

Health literacy plays a role in the events leading up to children's hospitalizations, during hospital admission, and after discharge. Hospitals and providers should use a universal precautions approach and routinely incorporate health-literacy-informed strategies in communicating with all patients and families to ensure that they can understand health information, follow medical instructions, participate actively in their own/their child's care, and successfully navigate the health care system. Interventions that incorporate health-literacy-informed strategies and that target patients/families and health care systems should be implemented to improve patient outcomes and patient-centered and family-centered care.

Keywords: Bedside rounds; Communication; Discharge; Health literacy; Inpatient care; Patient safety; Patient- and family-centered care; Pediatrics.