Transcript
Speaker: honestly are going to be when you're like old and older and you know retired and you're like what am i going to do with my life i'm going to see you in this pickup truck with this storm the gold satellite capture thing in the back of your car running around chasing storms that's what you're going to be done this is on call this would be really cool to just wear scrubs all the time and you don't have to think about what you're going to wear to work that is awesome we're here to answer your questions we can sit down and discuss them
Speaker: Wait, I got to go.
Speaker: I'm on call.
Speaker: Wait, you're on call?
Speaker: I thought I was on call.
Speaker: Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of On Call with April and Alicia.
Speaker: I'm April.
Speaker: I'm Alicia.
Speaker: We're back in April.
Speaker: I don't want to talk.
Speaker: We don't need to waste any more time.
Speaker: I need to tell you something immediately.
Speaker: Let me hear it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You should have known this, but guess what?
Speaker: I was kind of in a hurricane, kind of in a hurricane.
Speaker: It was a nor'easter, but I'm going to call it a hurricane, like a level one.
Speaker: I think you're the only one in the entire world that says that with such an excited nature.
Speaker: I was excited.
Speaker: I didn't even want you to say, hi, I'm April and I'm Alicia.
Speaker: I was just like, who cares?
Speaker: We got to talk about this.
Speaker: I feel like.
Speaker: Was this back when you were like, hey, you're in a nor'easter?
Speaker: Yes, I'm in a nor'easter.
Speaker: That's when I was telling you, like, do you understand what you're in the middle of right now, April?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm in the middle of a lot of rain.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: I thought it was amazing.
Speaker: I know it's past now, but I've been chomping at the bit to tell you because I went to Savannah.
Speaker: or a wedding with all the kids and we're on this house.
Speaker: It's kind of like, like right on Tybee Island, which is connected to Savannah, just a little island off of it.
Speaker: And the house kind of sits back like more in a marsh.
Speaker: So it's not quite like wasn't on the ocean or anything, but you could see, you know, like the water from a distance if you're up on the third floor.
Speaker: And like when a tide comes in, the tide would come in to come in through the marsh.
Speaker: And it was like really cool because it would fill up this dock.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden, like the tide would go out and then you're like, wow, it's just like dry kind of ish, you know, marshy, whatever.
Speaker: And I went down to the beach the first day we got there and I went early because I love like when nobody's at the water and just like the sunrise.
Speaker: So cool.
Speaker: It was windy.
Speaker: And I was like, these waves were probably, I mean, for Atlantic, I
Speaker: three, four foot swells are kind of big if there's not a storm, you know what I mean?
Speaker: And I was like, what in the heck?
Speaker: And it just so happens Carl, who's our vice president of recruiting for Sound, he lives in that area.
Speaker: And I pinged him and I said, wow, like there's some onshore winds coming.
Speaker: He goes, yeah, there's a nor'easter.
Speaker: And I was like, what?
Speaker: I had no idea.
Speaker: And the whole time I was down there, the weather was getting more and more, more.
Speaker: But now I felt bad for Maya, whose wedding we were there to celebrate because it was kind of inside outside.
Speaker: And I thought, oh,
Speaker: It's going to get rained out.
Speaker: But by the time I left, our whole house was surrounded by ocean water and went out into the main street.
Speaker: So we are actually delayed.
Speaker: Probably we had to wait for tide to go out.
Speaker: So it at least pulled out a little bit because even the highway was underwater.
Speaker: But I understand it was like worse to the north.
Speaker: But for purposes of just braggadocious rights,
Speaker: By wind gusts, I was technically in an almost level one hurricane.
Speaker: Tropical storm.
Speaker: Close.
Speaker: And you survived.
Speaker: I survived.
Speaker: Now I'm ready for a level two.
Speaker: Cat two.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So now I just probably need to go to Dallas or somewhere on the Gulf.
Speaker: So, yes, but all by chance, I didn't even check the weather.
Speaker: You honestly are going to be, when you're, like, old and older and, you know, retired, and you're like, what am I going to do with my life?
Speaker: I'm going to see you in this pickup truck with this storm.
Speaker: Big old satellite on the top of it.
Speaker: Catcher thing in the back of your car, running around chasing storms.
Speaker: That's what you're going to be doing.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, this was a close call.
Speaker: April almost got in a tornado, but...
Speaker: Yes, I think I'm just going to be like wild.
Speaker: I'll just wear a life alert bracelet or life alert necklace in case I need some help.
Speaker: But yeah, make sure that's linked to somebody who will check it.
Speaker: It was incredible, though.
Speaker: It was so incredible.
Speaker: And we had Stephanie Byrne on our podcast before.
Speaker: She just moved back to Virginia.
Speaker: And she was sending me some videos from them.
Speaker: They I mean, they had like 10 foot.
Speaker: They had huge waves coming in and in the area of Virginia she was at.
Speaker: And that's why I was asking you a jersey, because it looks like the thing they showed some video on the news that showed this like drop off.
Speaker: at one of the it was on a jersey shore i just don't know like what part of it and if you look at it it just looks like a little break in the sand but for context like the guy zoomed in and you could see people that were standing like so it put it in perspective it had to have been a 10 foot drop off of that that beach completely crumbled wow we have there was some flooding in ocean city which is closer to us um but like inland we you know we just got rain we rained for several days
Speaker: It looks like the coastline all the way up has just been battered.
Speaker: I think all the offshore hurricane, which I was, I'm happy there was not a hurricane so far that has hit the United States and caused any kind of harm to anyone.
Speaker: However, it's kind of like my Super Bowl season.
Speaker: Like I kind of like this is the suckiest hurricane season ever.
Speaker: But that's terrible.
Speaker: I need to stop while I'm ahead.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: Just stop right there.
Speaker: That's enough of that.
Speaker: Anyway, I got my Christmas gift early this year.
Speaker: I'm kind of excited.
Speaker: So there you go.
Speaker: Here we are.
Speaker: Here we are.
Speaker: How are you guys doing?
Speaker: We're doing good.
Speaker: You know, in the thick of fall sports and all the things.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I can't believe that it's like almost Halloween and almost November.
Speaker: It's nuts.
Speaker: Stop it.
Speaker: I can't do it.
Speaker: I can't do it.
Speaker: I don't know where the year went and every year gets faster.
Speaker: And I've always, you hear that growing up, you know, when you're a kid and they're like, hey, you know, like, don't take this for granted because one day you're going to want and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I just want to get out of school.
Speaker: And then you're like out of school and you're like, I got to go to work.
Speaker: Crap.
Speaker: I kind of wish I was back in school.
Speaker: You know, time flies, time with our kids fly, time with everything.
Speaker: I think as the kids get older, it goes faster because we're busier.
Speaker: You know, like it's every week.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, another week is by.
Speaker: Oh, we're just kidding.
Speaker: Another month is by.
Speaker: Oh, it's another year.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: I'm like, I barely just started writing 2025.
Speaker: No joke.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: And I'm going to have to start thinking about 26.
Speaker: But I have a friend that summed it up the best.
Speaker: And I've been saying this consistently for like a year.
Speaker: Time is a thief.
Speaker: It just is a thief.
Speaker: It's gone that quick.
Speaker: So be present.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: Enjoy the hurricanes in the nor'easters folks.
Speaker: It's exciting.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Well, listen, we are coming up to the end of October and October is health literacy month.
Speaker: So I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about health literacy, but in our.
Speaker: typical fashion, right?
Speaker: OK, yeah, like it's health literacy month.
Speaker: Let's do some health literacy, true or false, fact or fiction, just some health literacy trivia.
Speaker: But for those of you guys that don't know what health literacy is, health literacy isn't just like about reading or writing.
Speaker: it's really about how well people can understand and use health information as like patients can use this information to make decisions about your care so it's really the difference between knowing what a prescription says and then like knowing how to take it right um i do you ever find how many patients or even family members um i'll say my son for example he had he's got um
Speaker: tinea versicolor and he has been trying some topical creams with his dermatologist but it's not working really well and so he had to end up getting pl or some oral medication but when he was at the pharmacy he's like what do i ask them and i'm like well he and he's over 18 so i can't do his work for him but he's like i said you're asking for your prescription he goes i don't know what the name of it is and i was like most people don't
Speaker: You know, they don't know.
Speaker: They just go, this is my blood pressure pill and this is my cholesterol pill and this is my diabetes pill, you know, like that.
Speaker: But it is, it's important for us to know, you know, not just what it says.
Speaker: I know I'm supposed to take it twice a day, but like, how do you safely take it?
Speaker: What are you, what are you doing with it?
Speaker: You know, like,
Speaker: And the wild part, though, is that studies have shown that like nine out of 10 adults in the U.S., they struggle with health information.
Speaker: And that's the smartest people.
Speaker: They could totally misinterpret something like a medication label, a test result or something on your insurance form.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: To me and for us, I think this month would not just be really about awareness, but empowerment and making our health information clear, clear for us as providers to our patients and clear, accessible, understandable for our patients.
Speaker: So today we're going to talk health literacy.
Speaker: We're going to test ourselves.
Speaker: We're going to test you listeners and we're going to do a couple of true and false or some, you know, faker for real, however you want to call it.
Speaker: But we're going to do this about health literacy.
Speaker: And let's see between the two of us who is the most health literate.
Speaker: All right, so we're keeping score.
Speaker: We're keeping score unless I lose.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Then that's about what I would expect you to say.
Speaker: Your pen will run out of ink.
Speaker: Lucky for you, I have like 10 pens, so I'm ready.
Speaker: I'm sure you do, April.
Speaker: It does not surprise me.
Speaker: Yep, it didn't.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, I guess I'll ask first.
Speaker: You go first.
Speaker: I'm going to start off by breaking the rules, and we're going to go multiple choice instead of true or false.
Speaker: Oh, gosh.
Speaker: podcast is over.
Speaker: Anyway, hopefully this was a great episode, everybody.
Speaker: Thank you for listening.
Speaker: April's breaking the rules.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Breaking the rules.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Are you ready?
Speaker: I'm ready.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Which of the following is not a type of health literacy included in the definition?
Speaker: A, personal health literacy, B, cultural health literacy, and C, organizational health literacy.
Speaker: I'm going to say organizational.
Speaker: you are wrong i don't even know what any of those things are by the way so that's why i asked the question because i think people should know what it is right do tell absolutely do tell
Speaker: All right, so the definition of health literacy was actually updated in August of 2020.
Speaker: And so the original definition was just one definition, right?
Speaker: Which is what you've already talked about, you know, basically the ability to find and understand information.
Speaker: But the new update, so the new definition actually talked,
Speaker: And I separated out personal and organizational health literacy.
Speaker: So personal health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand and use information and services to inform health related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
Speaker: Whereas organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individual individuals to find, understand, and use information to help make those decisions.
Speaker: So personal is like, you're getting that information, processing it, figuring out what to do for yourself, or maybe it's for a family member, right?
Speaker: That you're making those decisions for, but organizational is more about the fact that organization should equitably make that information available to you so that you can educate yourself.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the new definitions, but it's yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the new definitions really emphasize like, you know, the ability to use health information rather than to just understand it.
Speaker: It focuses on making well-informed decisions rather than kind of just appropriate ones and acknowledging that organizations have a responsibility to address it, health literacy, and incorporating a public health perspective as well.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That was like a lecture.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know that's a lot of information that I didn't know.
Speaker: So I was like really having to listen to here.
Speaker: I was like, oh, wow.
Speaker: I know it was interesting.
Speaker: So like that organizational definition, it really gets to that kind of health equity piece, right?
Speaker: Like trying to make sure that the highest level of, you know, information, things like that is available for all people.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well.
Speaker: Lots of layers that I didn't know existed.
Speaker: Lord have mercy.
Speaker: I don't think you've ever hit us with a question this hard.
Speaker: I probably wouldn't have gotten it right.
Speaker: Even if I had a second to study it.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, I just learned something.
Speaker: So I'm going to give you a very easy one because I made mine very easy for you today.
Speaker: This is why we won't keep score.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: That's all right.
Speaker: These are important things to talk about.
Speaker: So I'm going to say true or false.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: If you can read or write,
Speaker: you automatically have good health literacy.
Speaker: False.
Speaker: Yeah, I knew you'd get that, but it's important.
Speaker: You ever had that patient who just like nods yes to everything, like only to find out they didn't understand, like, don't take this with food, right?
Speaker: Like when you're telling them everything or you put wrote it on a piece of paper and they're like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
Speaker: And they still were like, oh, I missed that part.
Speaker: Yeah, happens all the time.
Speaker: Health literacy is just, it's more than basic literacy just because we can read and write.
Speaker: It really is more the ability to understand and use that health information.
Speaker: So someone might be able to fluently read.
Speaker: And I think they tell us in health care that
Speaker: most of our patients, what do they say, third grade, that we deliver our materials at like a third or fifth grade level because we don't make an assumption that everyone has the same level of education.
Speaker: But people could be very, very brilliant.
Speaker: They could read fluently, but they still could struggle to follow complex medical directions or just insurance jargon.
Speaker: Even really educated people can get lost.
Speaker: in the sea of all the acronyms that we have in medicine and numbers and forms and talk.
Speaker: And I think we also know that we talk in a whole different language that is very familiar to you and I. I find myself saying like, no, just do that PRN to my kid.
Speaker: And they're like, what?
Speaker: PRN.
Speaker: And they're like, oh, that's not what I meant.
Speaker: Or I'll do like even my shorthand.
Speaker: I'll still write medically in shorthand sometimes, like with...
Speaker: Like see with the line over it, like some weird stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, anyway.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: It is interesting because that we talk about this because like when I train new providers or when I precepted students, I would always give them like a topic, you know, within the day and say, go home and read about this topic and we'll talk about it tomorrow.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: To like, make sure that they're reading.
Speaker: And one of the things that I would do is I would always say, okay, so they're going to, you know, they always come back and they have their paper, you
Speaker: And they just regurgitate, you know, that medical jargon that they read on the internet the night before from a book or from whatever.
Speaker: And I always used to tell them, okay, put your paper away.
Speaker: And now explain that to me like I'm a patient that doesn't know what you're talking about.
Speaker: Because I don't think that we get...
Speaker: Like it's not always part of the training, right?
Speaker: Probably how much training you get on that depends on your clinical rotations and things like that.
Speaker: But, and it's also something that you just have to get used to doing, you know, like I used to sit down and draw pictures for patients and I love drawing pictures of the heart that are terrible or the gallbladder or whatever it may be.
Speaker: But I always incorporate that for some reason.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When I draw a heart, it's a very weird heart, but yes, I know what you mean.
Speaker: You know, so that's important.
Speaker: So if you're a provider and you're training a new provider, maybe, you know, think of adopting that strategy because it is important that you develop that skill.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: So I'm winning.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you're losing.
Speaker: So we'll go to my next question.
Speaker: I'm winning because you got it right.
Speaker: I've changed the score.
Speaker: In some weird logic.
Speaker: So whoever, if you get it right, if you get my questions right, I win.
Speaker: Oh, I see.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Some backwards knowledge there.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Terrible to play with as a child, by the way.
Speaker: I would have hated playing games with you.
Speaker: I still, I have no desire to play games with you as an adult.
Speaker: Just so you know.
Speaker: We've talked about talking about the monopoly board.
Speaker: Don't bring cards to our conference next week.
Speaker: I'm going to.
Speaker: Everything's a competition.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Five siblings.
Speaker: What do you think it's going to be like?
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: You've got to compete for everything.
Speaker: Food, attention, bed space, the fan, the air conditioner, all of those.
Speaker: The bathroom.
Speaker: We had to fight for everything.
Speaker: Everything's a competition.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: You're up.
Speaker: I have another multiple choice for you.
Speaker: Good gravy.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: You're a little easier.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Limited health literacy is associated with all the following except.
Speaker: Say it one more time.
Speaker: Limited health literacy is associated with all the following except.
Speaker: Are you ready?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A, lower health care costs.
Speaker: Closing my eyes and focusing.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: A, lower health care costs.
Speaker: B, worse health outcomes.
Speaker: C, decreased ability to adopt healthy behaviors.
Speaker: Now, you know, I'm going to ask you to read those again.
Speaker: One more time.
Speaker: A, lower healthcare costs.
Speaker: B, worse health outcomes.
Speaker: C, decreased ability to adopt healthy behaviors.
Speaker: I have no idea.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I can't believe I stumped you so bad today.
Speaker: I think it's because I can't see the question.
Speaker: So now I've already forgotten what the question is.
Speaker: I'm like, so tell me the question one more time.
Speaker: Which is not associated with limited health literacy.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Lower costs, worse outcomes, or ability to adopt decreased ability to adopt healthy behaviors.
Speaker: I'm going to say C. Nope.
Speaker: Is it B?
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Those are the two.
Speaker: I'm telling you, multiple choice gets me, April.
Speaker: And I think that's why you choose that because I cannot look at the question and you have figured out my kryptonite.
Speaker: This is not fair.
Speaker: It's totally fair.
Speaker: Well, pretend you're a provider talking to me.
Speaker: And if you just gave me as a patient, a multiple choice question, this is not health literate, April.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Tell me about it.
Speaker: So as you mentioned, this does impact about nine out of 10 people, but
Speaker: So limited health literacy.
Speaker: So if people aren't able to really obtain process and understand that information, then it really affects your ability to use that health information.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So when we get to adopting healthy behaviors, like if you can't understand sort of what the if you can't say, OK, this is my disease and these are the factors that I need to address in my life.
Speaker: like, you know, lifestyle modifications or whatever it is to improve my disease, then it's harder for you to adopt that if you don't understand that, right?
Speaker: Also harder to adopt on any, like act on any important public health alerts.
Speaker: And so this results in having worse health outcomes and higher costs, right?
Speaker: So if you don't understand...
Speaker: sort of kind of how the healthcare system works and, you know, what you have going on and saying, okay, like, this is my problem.
Speaker: This is my symptoms that I'm having.
Speaker: And these are the type of physicians I could see.
Speaker: And I'm going to go, you know, to this person.
Speaker: And instead you're just in the ER all the time for an example.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then, so there's a high cost of going to the ER or maybe you're just not getting the right care.
Speaker: You need not leading to the right diagnosis, which means you have a worse outcome.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So if we're not diagnosing and treating the right thing.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Having that limited health literacy can impact all of those things.
Speaker: So instead of having lower health care costs, which was the answer to that question, it's actually higher health care costs.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, you've come out of the.
Speaker: You've come out of the gate with some like, I don't know, we're talking like doctorate level questions today or something.
Speaker: I don't know why you're trying to stress me out, April, but that's fine.
Speaker: I'm still going to keep giving you an easy one.
Speaker: I'm just kidding.
Speaker: You're not stressing me out.
Speaker: But I think it's a multiple choice.
Speaker: It gets me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Next time I'm doing all multiple choice for you.
Speaker: I'm just doing all multiple choice so you can get them all wrong.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So you're probably gonna get this one right, but this is, this is a good one anyway.
Speaker: High health literacy, true or false?
Speaker: High health literacy means someone is really good at finding information online.
Speaker: False.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But why is it false?
Speaker: Do you know?
Speaker: Because they can find the information, but you also have to like process it and understand it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: know what it's saying, right?
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: And that's actually called digital literacy.
Speaker: Isn't that interesting?
Speaker: I didn't know that because I didn't know such a thing existed.
Speaker: But no, that's actually, in fact, digital literacy.
Speaker: It's related, but it's distinct.
Speaker: Health literacy includes evaluating whether the source is reliable, right?
Speaker: A person might be really good at Googling before it like spotting misinformation or paid content disguised as something that would be credible.
Speaker: But true health literacy means asking people
Speaker: Who wrote this and why?
Speaker: Now I want to challenge you with something.
Speaker: I want to give you a health tip.
Speaker: And I want you to tell me, I'm going to give you two health tips that I pulled up online.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: One is real and one is fake.
Speaker: So this is like a two part question, but I already got it right.
Speaker: You did get it right, but this is for bonus points.
Speaker: So you get it writer, writer, writer, writer.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So health tip number one,
Speaker: Drinking a glass of lemon water, this is a real tip from online.
Speaker: Drinking a glass of lemon water every morning detoxifies your liver and balances your body's pH.
Speaker: It's one of the simplest ways to cleanse your system naturally.
Speaker: That's health tip number one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Health tip number two.
Speaker: Washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds is the most effective way to prevent infections and reduce the spread of illness.
Speaker: Number two is correct.
Speaker: You are, right.
Speaker: But you see what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like drinking a glass of lemon water every morning, like digital literacy is so important because lemon water is great for dehydration, right?
Speaker: It's got a little vitamin C in it, but your liver is already detoxifying your body.
Speaker: So lemon...
Speaker: doesn't really need to help the liver do that.
Speaker: And the pH balancing is a little bit more pseudoscience right now.
Speaker: Our body regulates its own pH.
Speaker: So the really, like really the only benefit in that health tip would be just drink more water, you know?
Speaker: But detoxifying your liver is, it sounds good, but that's what it does.
Speaker: Unless you've got a faulty liver, at which point your hepatologist should probably be talking to you.
Speaker: Not Google, you know?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Anyway, I just thought that was a little bit fun.
Speaker: No, that is fun.
Speaker: Let's go one more round.
Speaker: But it's, you know, to that extent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, we have patients all the time that come in and say, oh, well, I Googled this, right?
Speaker: And they have, you know, what they think their diagnosis is or what they think we should be doing.
Speaker: How do you handle those conversations?
Speaker: Like, what's your advice to patients in those?
Speaker: I think I, you know what?
Speaker: We talked about this, I think, last year sometime.
Speaker: And we talked about YouTube University, especially during COVID and all of the misinformation that was coming out there.
Speaker: So I, one, I try to acknowledge their core fear, you know?
Speaker: So number one, what is it that they're looking for?
Speaker: They've got a fear.
Speaker: They're obviously concerned about their health.
Speaker: I do try to, and I try to understand how the patient's going to hear me.
Speaker: And every patient listens different.
Speaker: Some patients want a lot of information, a lot of, you know,
Speaker: Data.
Speaker: I'm a data person.
Speaker: Show me data.
Speaker: Let me read it.
Speaker: Let me see it.
Speaker: Let me understand it.
Speaker: Package inserts, probably one of the only providers you'll know that reads a PI for every medication.
Speaker: I don't know why.
Speaker: I just do.
Speaker: But then there's other patients that may be a little bit more visual, right?
Speaker: You've got to be a little bit more creative.
Speaker: Some people are visual in the sense of pictures.
Speaker: Some need it written down as tasks.
Speaker: I think I try to, one, approach the concern, approach the fear, and then share what I know about what they're saying, what I know to be incorrect and why it concerns me that they may do it this way.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And try to navigate that way.
Speaker: And sometimes you got to meet them in the middle.
Speaker: And sometimes they're just hell bent on the fact that they are going to.
Speaker: Follow this way, this whatever, and you've you've got to you got to try to build trust.
Speaker: And once if they're trusting online, what it tells me is they trust themselves a bit more than they trust the health care industry.
Speaker: So, yeah, sometimes it's just about building a relationship and we don't always have the benefit of doing that.
Speaker: In the hospital.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, you know, we're not primary care providers, but if you've got a longer term patient, yes.
Speaker: Sometimes you've only got that 20, 30 minute visit to do it.
Speaker: So that's, that's how I approach it.
Speaker: How do you do it?
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's similar.
Speaker: You know, and I, I also, so one thing I would say is that
Speaker: I mean, I do it too, right?
Speaker: I Google things.
Speaker: I mean, it's just that I happen to use UpToDate, which is like an evidence-based thing because I have access to that, right?
Speaker: So I always kind of talk to my patients about that the internet can be a very helpful thing, but like we just said with your question, is that you have to make sure it's a reputable source if you're going to be searching on the internet.
Speaker: And I also kind of talk to them too about, because you can...
Speaker: you can easily go down a rabbit hole and read about like worst case scenarios and all that stuff and really make yourself more anxious and nervous than you were when you started googling you know so um i always talk to them about that about making sure that it's a reputable source if they are going to to read about it so that's smart and yeah maybe even just putting together a handful of websites that are reputable i wonder if hospitals do that
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I've actually never seen one.
Speaker: Me neither.
Speaker: But hey, trademark.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Trademark.
Speaker: Trademark.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You guys hear it.
Speaker: This is our idea.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: There's going to be no more on call with April Alicia because we're going to be off here in the beach.
Speaker: No, we'll still on call it because we could do it all day.
Speaker: You might get two episodes a week at this point.
Speaker: We're fine.
Speaker: We've retired.
Speaker: No more a call room.
Speaker: We're on call virtually from a distance.
Speaker: All right, let's go one more round.
Speaker: One more round.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I will bless you with a true or false question here.
Speaker: Yay!
Speaker: That I think is super easy, so you can get a point on that right side there.
Speaker: All right, ready?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: True or false.
Speaker: There are strategies that can be adopted to improve health literacy.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: That is true.
Speaker: What did I say false?
Speaker: I should have just said false to complicate things, but go ahead.
Speaker: I might have hung up on you if you said false.
Speaker: That's all right.
Speaker: I had to take the show out by myself.
Speaker: It's as easy as it can get, girl.
Speaker: So, all right.
Speaker: So yes, we can improve it, which a lot of those strategies really focus on clear communication, right?
Speaker: So making sure that, like we said, there's many ways that people learn, right?
Speaker: So you can do pamphlets.
Speaker: You can make sure that the information is kind of in words or terms that the majority of people would understand.
Speaker: You can actually like
Speaker: pressure test things, you know, before you put it out there.
Speaker: So you can kind of give it to a subset of maybe you're in a practice and you have patients and you're getting some material ready for patients.
Speaker: You could pick a couple of your patients and say, Hey, read this and give me your thoughts on that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, and see how it, how it lands with them and do they understand how
Speaker: And doing that clear communication really, as you mentioned, builds that trust with your patients and your audience so that they're more likely to follow recommendations as well.
Speaker: So it really, really that clear communication kind of streams, lands all that processes and the translation processes.
Speaker: You can also do.
Speaker: educational programs, you know, for your patients, like if you're in, or you can do community engagement, right?
Speaker: Like, so, um, involving the community and kind of like health promotion activities, doing health fairs, um, you know, at my church, we actually, um, would hang up and they called it, um,
Speaker: pee and ponder actually is what they called it.
Speaker: And you, it would hang up in the bathroom stalls and we would, there was a few of us that were healthcare providers and we would pick topics that were like relevant to that time of the year.
Speaker: So in the fall, it was about ticks and things like that.
Speaker: And we would hang up little flyers in the bathroom, uh, in the stall and you can actually see it while you're in the bathroom, going to the bathroom.
Speaker: Um, but cause you're sitting there, uh, and it was in terms that everybody could understand so they could feel informed about different topics.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: I always thought it would be a good idea to put, you know how they always say, do your breast exam, like your self breast exam while you're in the shower.
Speaker: I just always think it'd be a great idea, like in hotels or maybe not like, oh yeah, I think any hotel or anywhere where somebody is using, maybe not a public shower, but yeah.
Speaker: a shower that's maybe not their home shower, gyms, things like that, like to put that little reminder, like when women are in the shower, like meet them where they are.
Speaker: That's like the best place to do a breast exam is in the shower.
Speaker: So yeah, I thought that was interesting.
Speaker: And I also, to build on your point though, I also think that we put a lot of onus on patients to be responsible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: for their health literacy.
Speaker: And a couple of things you pointed out earlier in our discussion was one, it's a team effort.
Speaker: There's all these, the organizational, you mentioned that our providers, sometimes we just need to simplify.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then organizations need to design better materials, right?
Speaker: And then patients need to feel safe asking questions.
Speaker: I think it's a shared responsibility, you know?
Speaker: And yeah,
Speaker: If we all do it, we can all improve the outcomes, but it can't just be on the patient at all.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: No, no, I agree.
Speaker: And as a provider too, like we have to give them the space to ask those questions, you know, like we always used to, you know, get it, observe each other in patient rooms and things like that.
Speaker: And, you know, part of it was that you had to sit down with a patient, which is just so important because it just, you know,
Speaker: Makes them feel like you're there just listening to them and there to answer their questions, right?
Speaker: Rather than kind of running out of the room, you know, or standing in the doorway.
Speaker: So, yep.
Speaker: I agree with you.
Speaker: And I think I'm going to forego my last question just because there's one more part I want to add and I don't want to take us too long.
Speaker: But I think you're right.
Speaker: There's something that we do in sound like our patient experience.
Speaker: And for those of that that are not sound or external to sound, at some of our hospitals, we will monitor the patient experience.
Speaker: our team members as they have visits with patients, make sure that they're sitting down, make sure that they're, you know, giving good eye contact.
Speaker: If they're welcome to sit down, not all patients want you to sit down.
Speaker: So that's always something we ask, but that we're actually sitting down and spending that time.
Speaker: We've got a million things and sometimes a ton of patients on our census to see.
Speaker: And, and it'd be,
Speaker: it's a way for sound to remind us as providers to remain patient forward and patient centered.
Speaker: And I think that's a really wonderful thing that we do here.
Speaker: And I'm sure we're not the only organization that does that, but how much you can negate in confusion by just sitting down and spending some time.
Speaker: I think it's important.
Speaker: And also what my question was gonna be, but I wanted to just piggyback was a little bit about cultural beliefs.
Speaker: And you talked about that earlier.
Speaker: Sometimes cultural beliefs, we interpret that as people that don't, that aren't smart or make poor health decisions, but culture is
Speaker: shapes how people view illness.
Speaker: So when you have it like Jehovah, when this doesn't want blood transfusion, or it's also understanding culturally what they believe in.
Speaker: And we're quick, I believe to label non-compliance when, when a patient doesn't do what we believe, but we've gotta be very, very cognizant to
Speaker: and focused on the fact that this is cultural respect.
Speaker: This may be faith tradition.
Speaker: This could be, they have differing expectations of our care.
Speaker: I think recognizing some of those barriers and when somebody is pushing back, that's another one of those like, hey, how do you manage that?
Speaker: Well, you figure out what their fear is or what's their faith or what's their common ground.
Speaker: If it's cultural, it doesn't mean they're dumb.
Speaker: It doesn't mean that they're non-compliant.
Speaker: I almost kind of hate that word, honestly.
Speaker: It's rare to find a patient who truly doesn't do what they're supposed to do just because they just don't want to do it.
Speaker: It's tied to something almost always.
Speaker: And I think they just get a bad name and then they get treated poorly.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think it's so important to understand that and meet them where they are.
Speaker: And, you know, I think our role as providers in those instances, especially those cultural instances, I mean, you know, you mentioned the Jehovah witness that doesn't want blood transfusions.
Speaker: I mean, I would always just say to them, like, I understand, you know, where you're coming from.
Speaker: And I just want you to understand the risks of not, you know, doing a blood transfusion, for example.
Speaker: And then, you know, we have to respect their decision because ultimately it's their decision.
Speaker: their health and their health care.
Speaker: And as long as they're making an informed decision, you know, we'd have to respect that.
Speaker: So absolutely.
Speaker: And there's a lot of different cultural things, even around the food that we order, the diets that we don't think about, you know, that patients are getting or sometimes micromanaging the food that does come in.
Speaker: I think it just trying to be a bit more holistic about our approach to it is really important.
Speaker: So the one thing I would challenge all of us as we go into our week into next week, seeing patients for us providers is like, what's one thing that we can eat?
Speaker: What's one thing we can do to make healthcare easier for everyone to understand?
Speaker: And if you're a provider, what's one thing we can do for our patients?
Speaker: If you're a patient listening,
Speaker: What is one thing you can do to help your provider that could be asking questions and not being fearful to do that?
Speaker: And as an organization, what's one thing an organization can do to improve?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: you know, so, all right, well, this was a good one.
Speaker: And we talked longer than we expected to, but I'm long-winded here, but this is an important topic.
Speaker: And I think we touch on this in a lot of our other topics, but this was important.
Speaker: But if you guys have a topic or are interested in sharing your feedback or your thoughts, please, please, please reach out to us.
Speaker: We're on social media at Instagram at On Call with April and Alicia.
Speaker: We are on LinkedIn as well.
Speaker: Same tag name, On Call with April and Alicia.
Speaker: And if you're from the archaic days and want to email, which nobody has, that would be,
Speaker: on call podcast at sound physicians.com and be the first.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: You might get a bonus prize.
Speaker: Just send us something.
Speaker: Jeez.
Speaker: But we'd love to, we'd love to hear and interact.
Speaker: We love the feedback that we're already getting.
Speaker: And thank you for all of our internal sound listeners and the feedback we're getting in those from external.
Speaker: We appreciate it.
Speaker: We hear it.
Speaker: We love it.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: So absolutely.
Speaker: Thank you everyone.
Speaker: And until next time you stay well and we'll stay on call.
Speaker: Have a great week guys.
Speaker: Bye everyone.
