2008 Summer Meeting
Prescription for Confusion: Health Literacy and the Rx Label
Track: Hot Topic
Program Code:129-L05
Date: 11 June 2008
Time: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Location:615 - Level 6MEETING PLANNING ASSOCIATE:
Dr. Michael Wolf, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor and Director, Northwestern University
| Michael S. Wolf, MA MPH PhD is Assistant Professor of Medicine and Learning Sciences within the Institute for Healthcare Studies and Division of General Internal Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Dr. Wolf is co-founder and Director of the Health Literacy and Learning Program, an endeavor started in early Spring 2006 to unite faculty from Medicine, Education, Cognitive Science, Psychology, and Communication to study the health literacy problem. Dr. Wolf holds degrees in social policy, public health (epidemiology), cognitive/learning sciences, and psychology. His primary areas of study have been health literacy, adult learning and cognition, health disparities, chronic care management, and medication safety. He has received numerous citations for his work in health literacy and health equity. Dr. Wolf is currently the principal investigator on the first NIH-funded research studies to investigate the link between health literacy, cognitive ability, and performance on routine health tasks (R01 AG030611; PI: Wolf), and to test an evidence-based drug container label design to improve patient understanding and use (R01 HS01768; PI: Wolf). He also received a research grant from Target Corporation to re-design label icons, instructions, and warnings for their ClearRx initiative. More recently, Dr. Wolf has received an NIH grant to use the electronic medical record to standardize physician prescribing practices and generate ‘patient-friendly’ prescriptions for patients at the point of care (R21 CA132771; PI: Wolf). He is a member of the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospital Organizations roundtable on Health Literacy and Patient Safety, the American College of Physicians Foundation Prescription Medication Labeling Advisory Board, the American Medical Association’s expert panel on chronic disease management for vulnerable populations, Medicaid Consumer Information Committee, and advises the Food & Drug Administration on health literacy matters. |
MODERATOR:
Dr. Michael Wolf, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor and Director, Northwestern University
| Michael S. Wolf, MA MPH PhD is Assistant Professor of Medicine and Learning Sciences within the Institute for Healthcare Studies and Division of General Internal Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Dr. Wolf is co-founder and Director of the Health Literacy and Learning Program, an endeavor started in early Spring 2006 to unite faculty from Medicine, Education, Cognitive Science, Psychology, and Communication to study the health literacy problem. Dr. Wolf holds degrees in social policy, public health (epidemiology), cognitive/learning sciences, and psychology. His primary areas of study have been health literacy, adult learning and cognition, health disparities, chronic care management, and medication safety. He has received numerous citations for his work in health literacy and health equity. Dr. Wolf is currently the principal investigator on the first NIH-funded research studies to investigate the link between health literacy, cognitive ability, and performance on routine health tasks (R01 AG030611; PI: Wolf), and to test an evidence-based drug container label design to improve patient understanding and use (R01 HS01768; PI: Wolf). He also received a research grant from Target Corporation to re-design label icons, instructions, and warnings for their ClearRx initiative. More recently, Dr. Wolf has received an NIH grant to use the electronic medical record to standardize physician prescribing practices and generate ‘patient-friendly’ prescriptions for patients at the point of care (R21 CA132771; PI: Wolf). He is a member of the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospital Organizations roundtable on Health Literacy and Patient Safety, the American College of Physicians Foundation Prescription Medication Labeling Advisory Board, the American Medical Association’s expert panel on chronic disease management for vulnerable populations, Medicaid Consumer Information Committee, and advises the Food & Drug Administration on health literacy matters. |
PRESENTER(S):
Dr. Michael Wolf, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor and Director, Northwestern University
| Michael S. Wolf, MA MPH PhD is Assistant Professor of Medicine and Learning Sciences within the Institute for Healthcare Studies and Division of General Internal Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Dr. Wolf is co-founder and Director of the Health Literacy and Learning Program, an endeavor started in early Spring 2006 to unite faculty from Medicine, Education, Cognitive Science, Psychology, and Communication to study the health literacy problem. Dr. Wolf holds degrees in social policy, public health (epidemiology), cognitive/learning sciences, and psychology. His primary areas of study have been health literacy, adult learning and cognition, health disparities, chronic care management, and medication safety. He has received numerous citations for his work in health literacy and health equity. Dr. Wolf is currently the principal investigator on the first NIH-funded research studies to investigate the link between health literacy, cognitive ability, and performance on routine health tasks (R01 AG030611; PI: Wolf), and to test an evidence-based drug container label design to improve patient understanding and use (R01 HS01768; PI: Wolf). He also received a research grant from Target Corporation to re-design label icons, instructions, and warnings for their ClearRx initiative. More recently, Dr. Wolf has received an NIH grant to use the electronic medical record to standardize physician prescribing practices and generate ‘patient-friendly’ prescriptions for patients at the point of care (R21 CA132771; PI: Wolf). He is a member of the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospital Organizations roundtable on Health Literacy and Patient Safety, the American College of Physicians Foundation Prescription Medication Labeling Advisory Board, the American Medical Association’s expert panel on chronic disease management for vulnerable populations, Medicaid Consumer Information Committee, and advises the Food & Drug Administration on health literacy matters. |
Description:
"1 tab PO QD" just isn't cutting it anymore. Health literacy is increasingly viewed as a patient safety issue and has been shown to contribute to medication errors. A common mistake involves the word "once" -- as in "once daily" -- which Spanish-speaking patients have mistinterpreted as "eleven" times. Individuals with limited health literacy have less health knowledge, worse self-management skills, lower use of preventive services, and higher hospitalization rates. In this session, learn more about the scope and details of this important issue and what can be done about it.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe issues and problems related to patients' misunderstanding common dosage instructions on prescription drug container labels.
- Describe common causes for misunderstanding prescription drug warning labels among adults with low literacy.
- Explain the relationship between low health literacy levels and overall and cause-specific mortality.
- Determine the usefulness of consumer-directed, FDA-approved Medication Guides to patients with limited literacy.
- Identify steps that can be taken to design prescription drug labels that are clear to patients with low health literacy levels
