Health literacy is defined as "the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions."1 The skills required encompass reading, listening, analytics, numeracy, and decision-making, plus the ability to navigate a complex and changing healthcare delivery system. Healthcare providers, patients, and other stakeholders have important roles in health literacy.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):2
Anyone who provides health information and services to others, such as a doctor, nurse, dentist, pharmacist, or public health worker, also needs health literacy skills to
Given the increasing complexity of cancer diagnosis, treatment, follow-up with survivorship care plans, health literacy is integral to delivery of patient-centered care.
Featured Program: Let's Be Clear: Communicating to Improve the Cancer Patient Experience
With this education project ACCC seeks to help cancer programs across the country to improve survivorship programming through the application of the health literacy principles.
Interactive eCourse
Health Literacy & Clear Communication is a dynamic eCourse that delivers simple methods to improve patient-provider communications. Engage with oncology-specific exercises, activities, and situations and receive real-time feedback and suggestions to put evidence-based strategies into practice.
This installment of Oncology Issues emphasizes collaboration, whether between oncology and other medical specialties, between surgeons, or between the cancer care community and policy makers.
ACCCBuzz spotlights St. Luke’s University Health Network, St. Luke’s Cancer Center, one of the recipients of the 2024 ACCC Innovator Award.
Explore the effects of implicit bias on patient care through the lens of the second of three vignettes featured in the Association of Cancer Care Centers' Personalizing Care Video Series.
LYTE is a non-profit organization that aims to meet the needs of a growing and diverse breast cancer survivor community by providing expert health and wellness coaching.
In honor of Juneteenth, ACCC President Dr. Nadine J. Barrett and AACI President Dr. Robert A. Winn engaged in an empowering conversation about a shared organizational goal to advance equitable cancer care.
The panel at the FDA OCE 4th Annual National Black Family Cancer Awareness Week, Engaging the Generations Conversation on Cancer, forum, explores family and faith in cancer care.
As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes and restrictions loosens for most of the U.S., we'll discuss how patient education has become even more critical during this transition.
In this episode, CANCER BUZZ speaks with Steven Gilmore, PharmD, BCOP, Senior Manager of Clinical Content in Pharmacy and Clinical Programs with McKesson Specialty Health, and Christopher Benton, MD, hematologist and medical oncologist at Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers, to review key considerations and emerging trends for the treatment of anemia in the low-risk MDS population.
In this episode, CANCER BUZZ TV speaks with Tom Lycan, DO, MHS, assistant professor of Hematology & Oncology at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, about a practical tool that can provide a care plan roadmap for providers and patients to mitigate precision medicine disparities.
When the COVID-19 public health emergency heightened, everyone’s priorities shifted and the Patient and Family Advisory Council moved to the virtual space.
Highlands Oncology Group took key steps toward implementing an ePRO platform aimed at reducing emergency department utilization and unplanned hospitalization, while improving the patient’s quality of life.
The Collaborative Care Model uses the stepped care approach, enabling a flexible and personalized treatment approach that aligns with each patient’s specific needs.
In 2019, at the University of Colorado, Douglas Holt, MD, led the effort to implement and study the use of virtual reality within the clinic for patient education in oncology.
1. Nielsen-Bohlman L, Panzer AM, Kindig DA (eds). Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Institute of Medicine Committee on Health Literacy. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2004.
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What is Health Literacy?
