Hi Everyone,

Money seems to drive everything, doesn't it? We never have enough to do the kind of teaching, intervention, research and training that we hope to do. Also, saving money is often the biggest motivator for supporting projects. In that light, today's question is about how health literacy efforts of various kinds can save money. There has been research showing that patients with inadequate health literacy cost the health system huge amounts of money in longer hospital stays, more frequent emergency room visits and poor management of chronic health conditions.

I know that adult literacy is underfunded, and there is concern about a health literacy bill taking money away. But I want us to bring out all the ways in which improving health literacy (on the part of both patients and health care teams) can save money.

If we can save millions of dollars from implementing good health literacy practices, that money could fund health literacy efforts and adult literacy efforts, which would in turn save more money down the road.

So I invite you all to write in and tell us examples of how good health literacy practices can save money!

Here's an example from NPR (It's only 7 minutes):

Doctor Saved Michigan $100 Million
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17060374&sc=emaf&sc=emaf

All the best,
Julie





Julie McKinney
Discussion List Moderator
World Education/NCSALL
jmckinney at worlded.org