With an economic impact of nearly $73 billion annually, the cost of healthcare illiteracy places a heavy burden on public agencies, healthcare providers and U.S. taxpayers. This problem impacts human health and contributes to spiraling healthcare costs. View our recent webinar exploring how viaLanguage helped Northwestern Memorial Hospital address its health literacy needs.Learn how your organization can meet these challenges and the strategies you can employ to diminish the language barriers that prevail between you and those you serve

1. Bridging the Healthcare Literacy
Language Gap –
Key Strategies for 2010

2. Agenda
1. Introductions
2. Meeting the Challenges of Health Literacy
3. Best Practices in Translating for LEP
4. Avoiding Pitfalls of Mass Translation
5. Closing - Q & A

3. Your Presenters
Magdalyn Covitz Patyk, MS, RN, BC
• Manager of Patient & Family Education at Northwestern Memorial
Hospital in Chicago, IL.
• Currently a consulting editor for Patient Education Management
• Focus on patient education systems/resources and oversees outpatient
perinatal education classes
Chanin Ballance, viaLanguage, President and CEO
• Co-founder, President and CEO of viaLanguage
• She frequently speaks about multicultural marketing and global language
translation
• Published in industry publications like iMedia Connection, Inside
Healthcare, Healthcare Market Advisor and many more
Moderator: Scott Herber, viaLanguage Executive Vice President
• Manages viaLanguage’s Sales Channels
• 24 years experience in technology and software management
• Focus on communications in the Enterprise and healthcare markets

4. Introduction to Health Literacy
Introduction to Health Literacy

5. Challenge of Health Literacy
• Not new
• Personal health
• Economic
inefficiencies

6. What is Health Literacy?
The ability to understand and use health information to
make healthcare decisions and follow treatment
instructions.
•Medical Consents
•Preps for tests and procedures
•Hospital discharge instructions

7. Who is Our Target Audience?
Target Audience Includes:
• Limited English Proficiency
• English- primary language, low literacy
• Sophisticated healthcare consumer

8. Impacts to Cost of Care
• Healthcare expenditures higher for those in the
lowest 20% of literacy
(Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) 2003)
• Low functional literacy resulted in an estimated
$32 to $58 billion in additional health care costs.
(Center for Health Care Strategies, 2005.)
• Patients with inadequate literacy are twice as
likely to be hospitalized as those with adequate
literacy — (32% vs. 15%).
(Journal of General Internal Medicine, 1998)
(Center for Health Care Strategies, 2005)

9. How to Measure Readability
Readability Formulas
• Fry-best for health-related teaching materials
• Flesch Reading Ease & Flesch-Kincaid Grade level (MS Word)
• Others:
– SMOG
– Gunning Fog
– Fog Readability Test
• Multilingual Formulas
– Huerta Reading Ease

10. Meeting the Challenges
Introduction to Health Literacy

11. Meeting the Challenges-Tips
Use these Four (4) Steps to Effective Patient Education
1. Assessment (barriers to learning, knowledge base)
2. Planning (what, when, how)
3. Implementation
• Strategies
• Communication skills
4. Evaluation of education intervention

12. Key Components
• Involve S/O
• Compensate for/ address barriers to learning
• Address patient concerns first
• Contract learning objectives, mutual goal setting
• Provide clear, direct and focused messaging
• Take advantage of the “teachable moments”
• Evaluate learn through:
– Teach-back method
– Problem-center approach

13. Best Practices - Translating for LEP
Introduction to Health Literacy

14. Translation for LEP
• Identify language and culture
• Provide reference information in the patient’s
primary language
• Work with professional translators; Native
speakers with medical subject matter
expertise.

15. Ensure Consistency
• Primary Tools = Glossary and Style Guides

16. Why Translation Memory
• Ensures consistent use and reuse of approved
terms at target readability level

17. Pilot & Community Review
• Glossary Development: select booklet that
contains phrases frequently found in other
documents - TURP
• Community Testing: 50 page Transplant
Booklet with native speaker

18. Avoiding Pitfalls of Mass Translation
Introduction to Health Literacy

19. What do you really Need? Assessment
• Does it need to be
translated?
• What is the priority?
• Can the content be
– Abbreviated or
shortened?
– Replaced with
pictures?

20. Organize
• Develop comprehensive spread sheet
• Finalize content
• Indentify :
– Translation company files requirements
– Source of the final desk-top publishing
– Deliverable file needs- high & low
resolution files- hard copy or print on –
demand
• Naming of files

21. Example - File Structure

22. Avoid Costly Redesign
• In Design not
Quark
• Fewer Fonts
• Make sure a QA of
final is included

23. Recycle Your Translation
• Set up Translation Memory in advance
• Prioritize large batches if you can and
centralize
**Saves Time, Money and Improves Consistency

24. Resources
• The Council for Adult & Experiential Learning
http://www.cael.org/adultlearninginfocus_map.htm
• National Institute for Literacy (NIFL)
www.nifl.gov/lincs/discussions
• Centers for Disease Control & Prevention/Office of
Communication www.nifl.gov/lincs/discussions
• Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) Resources on
healthcare for racially/ethnically diverse populations
• Family PACT www.familypact.org
• Health Literacy Introductory Kit
www.amafoundation.org/go/healthliteracy

25. Contact Us
www.viaLanguage.com
Blog: SpeakingHealthcare.com
twitter.com/viaLanguage
Facebook.com/viaLanguage
Email: Marketing@vialanguage.com