The Role of Universal Health Literacy Precautions in Minimizing "Medspeak" and Promoting Shared Decision Making.
Shared decision making (SDM), a collaborative process whereby patients and professionals make health care decisions together, is a cornerstone of ethical patient care. The patient-clinician communication necessary to achieve SDM depends on many factors, not the least of which is a shared language (sometimes with the aid of a medical interpreter). However, even when a patient and clinician are speaking the same mother tongue, the use of medical jargon can pose a large and unnecessary barrier. This article discusses how health care professionals can use "universal health literacy precautions" as a legal, practical, and ethical means to enhance SDM and improve health care outcomes.
Librarian educator in charge of patient education for the Nova Scotia Health Authority, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Lara
L
Killian
Director of knowledge services at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
Margo
M
Coletti
D003142:Communication; D003657:Decision Making / Q000941:ethics*; D057220:Health Literacy; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D005791:Patient Care; D010358:Patient Participation; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations / Q000941:ethics*; D009626:Terminology as Topic