During the month of January we have been highlighting a collection of tools and resources to support healthcare professionals in improving the health literacy of their patients. We originally posted these tools on Twitter, and we have now gathered them here for ease of access.

First up, we highlighted an excellent presentation by Ruth Carlyle of Health Education England about the importance of health literacy in patients’ everyday lives. You can view Ruth’s presentation in the embedded tweet below, or directly through YouTube.

Our resources this month aim to tackle this problem. Our first recommendation is this presentation by Ruth Carlyle of Health Education England, which details the context, challenges, and support resources of health literacy: https://t.co/HzKyEPVzAg #ResourceOfTheMonth

— Cambridge Medical Library (@cam_med_lib) January 9, 2020

Next we drew your attention to Teach Back, and Chunk and Check, two techniques to check comprehension when conveying complex information — such as health information to patients or families.

Today we would like to highlight two communication techniques to check comprehension when conveying complex information: Teach Back, and Chunk and Check. You can read more about them here: https://t.co/D19CuaRiV3 and here: https://t.co/x0CtcqlbvR #ResourceOfTheMonth

— Cambridge Medical Library (@cam_med_lib) January 13, 2020

Next, we looked at written communication, and directed you to SMOG, Drivel Defence, and The Information Standard, which are tools to help make sure your writing is clear, and free of jargon.

Today we want to point out some resources to ensure your written communication is jargon-free, and clear to understand. These include SMOG: https://t.co/3mDRSeyqVc
Drivel Defence https://t.co/eHMlMRRwoq and the Information Standard https://t.co/Hxv4nOFeEP#HealthLiteracy

— Cambridge Medical Library (@cam_med_lib) January 20, 2020

Last of all we recommended the library’s own health literacy awareness training, which will bring all these tools and more together, and ensure you have the skills necessary to address this crucial issue.

Did you know the Medical Library offers health literacy training and support, covering tools, resources and techniques that will aid healthcare practitioners in communicating with patients and improving their health literacy. More details here: https://t.co/I9PNsuB2to

— Cambridge Medical Library (@cam_med_lib) January 27, 2020

If you have a Raven login you can book a place on one of the upcoming sessions via the bookings website. If you are an NHS staff member you will need to email the training team (librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk), stating the date and time of the course you wish to attend, and we will book a place for you.

We are also very happy to run this session on request at a date, time and location of your choosing for you and your colleagues or students. Please email the library training team to arrange this.

Do be sure to follow the Medical Library on Twitter for more great resources and tools every month.