FT. LAUDERDALE-DAVIE Fla. ---- Nova Southeastern University's (NSU) medical school, the College of Osteopathic Medicine, recently received a $1.35-million federal grant to create innovative methods to evaluate patients' health literacy.
Health literacy is the ability to get and use information in order to receive the best possible care.
The grant, awarded by the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, was given to the medical school's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine to develop a new measure of health literacy.
Research has shown that as many as half of all patients may not have the basic skills to understand their health care. Low health literacy has been linked to poor health and is especially problematic among Hispanics, African-Americans and the elderly.
NSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine (COM) will use the grant to develop better assessment methods, which is the first step to creating new ways to help patients understand their health care and become more active participants in their care.
COM's health literacy measure will be administered to participants on touch-screen computers, allowing doctors to better understand how to communicate with their patients. The measure will include questions about reading and video simulations of patients interacting with doctors. The 4-year study is being conducted in both Spanish and English to help ensure that it will be useful to most patients.
In the future, it can be used in doctors' offices to find out the best ways to give patients information about their medical care. Other studies have shown that information tailored to the needs of individual patients is more helpful to them. The new measure will be an important first step in developing computer-based applications that can improve doctors' ability to care for their patients.
About Nova Southeastern University: Situated on 300 beautiful acres in Davie, Florida, Nova Southeastern University is a dynamic fully accredited institution dedicated to providing high-quality educational programs of distinction from preschool through the professional and doctoral levels. NSU has more than 29,000 students and is the seventh largest not-for-profit independent institution nationally. The university awards associate's, bachelor's, master's, specialist, doctoral, and first-professional degrees in a wide range of fields, including business, counseling, computer and information sciences, education, medicine, optometry, pharmacy, dentistry, various health professions, law, marine sciences, early childhood, psychology and other social sciences. For more information visit www.nova.edu.