The Health Literacy and Patient Safety Roundtable met in May and September of 2005. The Roundtable was charged with framing the issues related to low health literacy and its impact on patient safety. The Roundtable discussions culminated in the publication of a white paper, which describes interventions to improve the ability of patients to understand complex medical information, and provide recommendations for a broad range of health care stakeholders and policymakers to mitigate the risks to patients with low health literacy and/or low English proficiency. The Joint Commission and Joint Commission Resources hosted a national symposium on health literacy and patient safety in June of 2006. Information gained from the symposium contributed to the content of the white paper, “’What Did the Doctor Say?:’ Improving Health Literacy to Protect Patient Safety."
For more information see
2006 Executive Summary:
The American College of Physicians (ACP) Foundation is pleased to
announce the availability of the Executive Summary for the 2006 Annual
National Health Communication Conference.
http://www.foundation.acponline.org/files/hcc5_exsum.pdf.