Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:  AHRQ Public Affairs 

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
(301) 427-1539

 
(301) 427-1241

 

NEW AHRQ TOOLS HELP PHARMACIES BETTER SERVE PATIENTS

 WITH LIMITED HEALTH LITERACY 

 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality today announced two new tools to help pharmacies
provide better quality services to people with limited health literacy.
The tools are titled, Is Our Pharmacy Meeting Patients' Needs? A
Pharmacy Health Literacy Assessment Tool User's Guide and Strategies to
Improve Communication between Pharmacy Staff and Patients: A Training
Program for Pharmacy Staff. 

 

Studies have found that people with limited health literacy are 12 to 18
times more likely to be unable to identify their own medications and
distinguish them from one another than people who are more health
literate.  They also have difficulty understanding simple instructions,
such as taking a medication every 6 hours, or how their medications
work.  People with limited health literacy also are less likely to
understand potential side effects and more likely to misinterpret drug
warning labels.

 

"Ensuring that people with limited health literacy understand how to
take their medications safely is key to improving the quality of health
care and reducing medical errors," said AHRQ Director Carolyn M. Clancy,
M.D.  "Pharmacists play an important role in this effort, and these new
tools will help them help their patients."

 

The tools resulted from a study that was co-funded by AHRQ and the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and were developed under contract by
Emory University.  

 

The pharmacy assessment tool can help raise pharmacy staff awareness of
health literacy issues, detect barriers that may prevent individuals
with limited literacy skills from using and understanding health
information provided by a pharmacy, and may help identify opportunities
for improving services. This tool includes a pharmacy assessment tour to
be completed by trained, objective auditors; a survey to be completed by
pharmacy staff; and a guide for focus groups with pharmacy patients. The
three parts are complementary and are designed to form a comprehensive
assessment.

 

The training program for pharmacy staff includes the use of explanatory
slides and small group breakout discussions. Participants will role play
using handouts before concluding with a question-and-answer session.

 

More than a third of adult Americans have levels of health literacy that
are below what is required to understand typical medication information,
according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy.  This problem is
more acute for certain groups, including the elderly, minorities,
immigrants, and the poor.  AHRQ's 2006 National Healthcare Disparities
Report

(http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhdr06/nhdr06.htm) found that these same
groups tend to have poorer health care, suggesting that limited health
literacy may be at least partially responsible for the disparities.

 

Is Our Pharmacy Meeting Patients' Needs? A Pharmacy Health Literacy
Assessment Tool User's Guide can be found online at
http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/pharmlit/.  Printed copies may be obtained by
calling the AHRQ Publications Clearinghouse at (800) 358-9295 or sending
an e-mail to ahrqpubs at ahrq.hhs.gov <mailto:ahrqpubs at ahrq.gov> .
Strategies to Improve Communication between Pharmacy Staff and Patients:
A Training Program for Pharmacy Staff can be found at
http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/pharmlit/pharmtrain.htm. 

 

For more information about AHRQ's health literacy activities, go to
http://www.ahrq.gov/browse/hlitix.htm.

 

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