Health literacy is making headlines. That’s gratifying to those of us who believe that patients need to be at the center of care—but they can’t be if they don’t have access to information they can understand and use to make decisions.

We know that tens of millions of Americans cannot understand the directions on their pill bottles, let alone how to interpret medical test results, preventive screening recommendations, or even the explanation of benefits statements from their health plans. And it’s not just because people aren’t educated, can’t read well, or don’t understand English as their primary language. Pain, fear, stress, medications … any of these can affect our ability to understand. So all of us will likely be health-illiterate at some point in our lives as patients or caregivers.

We also know that the price of low health literacy is high for patients, employers, providers, and the health care system. Health illiteracy impacts patient safety, prescription adherence, ER utilization, disease management, hospital readmissions, mortality, absenteeism, and more. A 2007 University of Connecticut study estimated the economic drain of poor health literacy in our country at between $106 billion and $238 billion a year.

Health literacy matters. Indeed, health literacy is a “stronger predictor of a person’s health than age, income, employment status, education, and race,” according to the American Medical Association.

That’s why an article in the February issue of Health Affairs gives us hope. Howard K. Koh, Donald M. Berwick, and their co-authors summarize the recent policy initiatives that are turning the spotlight on the impact of health literacy—or more accurately, health illiteracy. The three are:

• The Affordable Care Act, the health care reform law passed in 2010. It includes requirements for agencies, health plans, and providers to communicate clearly and effectively. (The constitutionality of the law is now under review by the United States Supreme Court.)
• The National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy, which is based on the belief that all people have a right to health information that helps them make informed decisions.
• The Plain Writing Act of 2010. It mandates that federal agencies write information clearly enough so people can understand and use it. (Healthwise is committed to using Plain Language principles in our content. We won the Center for Plain Language’s first annual ClearMark Grand Award in 2010 in recognition of our efforts.)

What’s the value proposition for this new policy emphasis? We see a future with improved access to health care and health information for all people, better health outcomes, and reduced costs. These efforts, the authors say, “can help break the cycle of crisis care and move health literacy from the margins to the mainstream of health care practices.”

At Healthwise, where our mission is to help people make better health decisions, we believe that’s where health literacy belongs.

Read the entire Health Affairs article New Federal Policy Initiatives To Boost Health Literacy Can Help The Nation Move Beyond The Cycle Of Costly ‘Crisis Care.’