Conference Agenda
18th Annual Health Literacy Conference
- Notes on the agenda
- May 1
- May 2
- May 3
Hello, and welcome to the 18th Annual IHA Health Literacy Conference. I’m writing today to tell you about a few changes we’re making to enhance your conference-going experience.
Wednesday Preconference. Once again, we have a full slate of sessions for Wednesday, May 1. But this year, we offer a set of courses geared toward those who are newer to health literacy. Called “Introductory Sessions,” these foundational courses will help ground you in principles and practices important in health literacy. (These are also great refresher courses for those who have been in the field for a while.) On Wednesday evening, following the “Health Literacy 101” course, we invite those new to health literacy to an informal networking reception to meet with and talk one-on-one with longtime experts in the health literacy field.
For those looking to bolster their skill sets, we present “Spotlight Sessions.” These courses, primarily targeted at the more experienced conference attendee, offer a deeper dive on a set of topics. This year, the Spotlight Sessions focus on Digital Innovation and Patient Engagement.
Main Conference. Two changes in store this year; one regarding breakout sessions, and the other for plenary sessions.
Breakout sessions
As part of an ongoing credentialing process, we designate our breakout sessions to match up with the 7 domains of competency set forth by the IHA Health Literacy Job Analysis Task Force, and vetted by members of the health literacy community. Here are the 7 domains:
- Communication
- Public Health
- Education
- Language, Culture, and Identity
- Organizational Systems and Policies
- Community Engagement
- Ethics
Our goal is to provide you with a means to map out your professional development pathway. This year, we are launching our assessment-based certificate program, which will provide educational content in each of these domains. Going forward, we want to give you an opportunity to focus your professional development in those areas you choose to pursue. Our intention is to continue with such designations each year, to help you create a balanced and purposeful educational trajectory for yourself.
Plenary sessions
Our theme this year, “Understanding Emerging Trends from a Health Literacy Perspective,” provides us with a unifying element for our plenary sessions. Keeping up to date with changes and challenges in healthcare is difficult enough; understanding these from a health literacy perspective is daunting. We’ve assembled experts to offer multiple perspectives on such issues as immigrant, migrant, and refugee health; digital promises and challenges; systemic biases; and how we can stimulate productive conversations on all these topics.
Final day. Those of us who live on the west coast understand the logistical challenges of flying to the east coast. We’ve listened to your comments in the evaluations, and we’ve noticed the increase in empty seats on Friday afternoon. So, we’re wrapping up the conference a little earlier (11 am) to allow our friends east of the Mississippi to make it home at a reasonable hour.
We hope these adjustments will enrich your conference experience. Please tell us your thoughts on these changes; we are always listening.
Thank you. Looking forward to seeing you in a few months!
Michael Villaire, MSLM
President/CEO
Institute for Healthcare Advancement
Wednesday, May 1st
Preconference Sessions
This year the preconference sessions are grouped into categories. Participants can choose to remain in a specific track or switch between tracks and attend any Introductory or Spotlight Session.
Introductory Sessions
All professionals relatively new to health literacy may be particularly interested in these sessions. They are designed to introduce important components of health literacy.
Plain Language Makes Plain Sense
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Teresa Wagner, DrPH, MS, CPH, RD/LD, CHWI
University of North Texas Health Science Center Institute for Patient Safety
Plain language makes it easier for everyone to understand and use health information. Although plain language is a good idea, many healthcare providers and organizations don’t use it all the time. This workshop will help you plan and act to improve plain language use to empower your organization with accurate, accessible and actionable health information. Participants receive plain language principles that are easy to understand and apply. Then, hands-on group work puts you through the act of revising a document. It was highly acclaimed at the Texas Health Literacy Conference and achieved State Certification for Community Health Worker continuing education.
Everything I Need to Know (About Health Literacy), I Learned in Kindergarten
10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Ellie Foster, MPH, CHWC
Kayla Sargent, MPH
MaineHealth
Join an experiential learning session using best practice methods to connect and engage with patients for better health outcomes. Attendees will learn and practice five strategies for improved communication and patient experience. This workshop will teach participants the basics of health literacy. By the time they leave, participants will feel like they've had these skills since kindergarten. This interactive session is for anyone who interacts with patients and families in person or in writing. Participants will rotate through kindergarten-inspired activity stations with hands-on activities packed with information. Participants will apply best practice strategies for making health information accessible for patients.
Lunch (On Your Own)
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Designing for Health Literacy
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Megan Pugmire
Oregon Health & Science University
Graphic designers, educators, and others responsible for everyday development and design must consider more than just plain language In order to create clear, memorable, and relevant patient materials. Taught by an art director embedded in an academic medical center, this session focuses on using design principles, learning theory, storytelling, and user-based participation in order to create the best content possible for health care audiences. Attendees will learn from clear before-and-after examples drawn specifically from health care settings.
The Health Literacy Environment- A Hands-On Experience
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Rima Rudd, ScDL
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Diana Gonzalez, MPH, CHES
Institute for Healthcare Advancement
Health literacy had been paying attention to the skills of the reader and the quality of the texts as well as the abilities of the listener and the communication skills of the speaker. Researchers and practitioners are also focusing on the context within which health activities take place. The health literacy environment of hospitals and health centers influences patients and family members as well as health care professionals. Workshop participants will discuss attributes of a health literate organization and identify factors that facilitate or impede people’s access to health information and care. Participants will be introduced to The Health Literacy Environment Activity Packet, originally developed and posted in 2007 and the Institute of Medicine Report of 2012. The hands on component of the workshop will send participations on a small journey – following a navigation exercise to begin the process of understanding literacy related barriers in the environment.
Objectives:
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- List and discuss at least 5 key attributes of a health literacy environment.
- Describe a process for introducing an environmental literacy assessment.
- Outline a plan for introducing the environmental assessment plan in their workplace.
Health Literacy 101 - An Introduction to the Field
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Michael Villaire, MSLM
Institute for Healthcare Advancement
This workshop will provide an overview of the scope of low health literacy, including frequencies among the general population, general characteristics, abilities and challenges of persons with low health literacy, and the cost of poor health literacy (both in terms of human suffering and dollars). Strategies for making individual and system-based improvements to improve health communication will be discussed.
Newcomer Reception - Meet and chat with longtime health literacy experts in an informal setting.
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Spotlight Sessions
Each year the spotlight will be on innovative developments in health literacy. This year the spotlight is on digital innovation and patient engagement.
Building Health Literate Care Through Meaningful Patient Engagement
9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Farrah Schwartz, MA
Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, UHN
Kerseri Scane, R.Kin, MSc
University Health Network
This session will review the importance of engaging patients in planning health literacy initiatives and resources. During the session, we will review methods to engage patients and practice using engagement tools.
Adding Video Education to Your Patient Education Efforts
9:00 am - 11:30 am
Leah Elsmore, MPH
Brittany Walter, RN, BSN, CPN
Cameron Johnson
Children’s Hospital Colorado
Adding Video Education to Your Patient Education Efforts
The Health Literacy Program at Children’s Hospital Colorado has launched an in-house video education program to enhance the patient and family education experience. Video education is a best-practice that addresses many challenges frequently encountered in healthcare, including linguistic diversity, low literacy, acuity of patient conditions, and shorter lengths of stay. It has been shown to improve retention over paper-based education. This session will walk through the patient education video development process from start to finish, how to determine if a topic will translate well to a video format, and will train participants on basic script development skills.
Lunch (On Your Own)
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Creating a Whiteboard Video
2:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Gary Ashwal, MA
Booster Shot Media
Stacey Dickert, MA
RiverHouse Creative
This hands-on workshop will introduce attendees to writing and production strategies for creating whiteboard animations. The workshop will be oriented around guiding attendees through a full production process of actually creating t heir own videos from writing through editing! Two important features of the whiteboard style are simple visual metaphors and plain-language narration. The focus on visuals makes the style a useful tool for teaching patients with low literacy skills or limited English proficiency. Attendees will watch and discuss examples of whiteboard videos for patient education, and they will learn tips and strategies for writing and producing their own videos.
Paid Sessions
Teach-back: Making it an Always Event
8:00 am - 12:00 pm
Mary Ann Abrams, MD, MPH
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
This interactive 4 hour workshop will use the "Always Use Teach-back!" Toolkit as a
foundation to strategize and create an implementat ion plan for making teach-back an "always event" throughout your organization.
$99.00
Creating Health Forms That People Can Understand: Strategies for Clearly Explaining Legal Requirements and Addressing Organizational Barriers
9:00 am - 4:00 pm
Jann Keenan, Ed.S.
Janet Ohene-Frempong, MS
Institute for Healthcare Advancement
Christopher Trudeau, JD
University of Arkansas for Medical Science, Center for Health Literacy
Are the health forms at your organization clear and understandable? Chances are, they aren’t as clear as your patient education material. Yet we know that people struggle to understand forms, applications, and all sorts of legal documents. Spend the day with three of our experts and learn many tips and tricks that you can use to improve the forms in your organization.
By the end of the workshop, you will be learn to:
- understand the fundamentals of creating clear, effective health documents and forms,
- navigate the legal rules that govern how courts interpret legal documents, and
- develop strategies to better advance health literacy initiatives in your organization.
$199.00
Thusday, May 2nd
Morning
Registration
6:00 am - 5:00 pm
Breakfast
7:00 am - 7:45 am
Welcome / Conference Overview
8:00 am - 8:20 am
Michael Villaire, MSLM
Institute for Healthcare Advancement
Opening Keynote: Changing the Narrative: Achieving Health Equity by Creating a New Social Contract
8:20 am - 9:20 am
Anthony Iton, MD, JD, MPH
The California Endowment
In 2013 when Forbes magazine listed the top ten healthcare quotes for 2013, the number one quote was attributed to me:“When it comes to health, your zip code matters more than your genetic code.” This brief presentation will address some of the data and evidence behind that quote by exploring the strength of the relationship between life expectancy and neighborhood. Using hundreds of thousands of death certificates, GIS mapping and other simple data analyses, a profile of life expectancy by neighborhood in seven different cities and regions will be presented. The implications for US health spending and population health management will be discussed and a model for understanding the social determinants of health will be presented. The role of narrative change in shaping health policy and re-creating our social contract will be described.
Advancing Health for Immigrant and Refugee Populations
9:20 am - 10:30 am
Moderator: Catina O’Leary PhD,LMSW
Health Literacy Media
- Rishi Sood, MPH
NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene
- Brandy Kramer
The Spring Institute
Immigrant and refugee populations experience health-related challenges on many levels, from access to engagement with health resources in communities across the country. Individual and system-level health literacy challenges include: understanding and accessing health care, public health, and health insurance systems that are unique to the US, health information in non-native languages, and the acute and chronic trauma associated with the act of fleeing their homes to start a new life in a new country. This session will focus on policy and practice innovations to advance health among immigrant and refugee populations with real world examples from the perspectives of public and community health.
Attendees will be able to…
- Identify health literacy challenges to immigrants and refugees entering the US
- Identify the unique mental health challenges among immigrants and refugees that serve as barriers to effective use of the US health care system
- Discuss gaps and opportunities in providing health resources to immigrants and refugees
- Identify system-level health literacy interventions to advance access and engagement in health care in the US, including:
- Communication strategies to establish trust
- Case management
- Community Health Workers and community engagement
Networking Refreshment Break
10:30 am - 10:45 am
Breakout Sessions
*This year the breakout sessions are categorized by content domains established by the Job Analysis Task Force to describe competencies of a Health Literacy Specialist.
Cultural Humility and Facing Difficult Conversations
Kristin Martinez, MS, LMFT
PAX Therapy and Family Services, Inc.
This breakaway focuses on the role of privilege in systems. It brings into play the power of the provider, and the importance of cultural humility in joining with our clients and standing with them rather than for them. This session also aims to build practical skills in talking about difficult topics like race, money, religion, sexuality, etc. This session is discussion rich, and pushes the bounds of personal comfort for the sake of better outcomes, and more just service implementation.
Data, Design, and Technology: Infographic Strategies for Health Communication
CommunicateHealth
Learning Health Literacy through Service Learning
University of North Texas Health Science Center Institute for Patient Safety
Harris College of Nursing
Lessons from the Yeti: Unpacking the Learnability of Risk Perception
San Francisco State University
Margaret Handley, PhD, MPH
University of California, San Francisco
Afternoon
Luncheon - IHA Health Literacy Awards / Listserv and International Activities Overview
12:30 pm - 1:45 pm
Harnessing Technology to Build a Healthy, Equitable Future
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Robert Gold, PhD, DrPH
University of Maryland
Stacy Robison, MPH, MCHES
CommunicateHealth, Inc.
Will new technologies boost medication adherence and improve chronic disease management? Can artificial intelligence help solve the mental health crisis? When it comes to digital health tools, there’s hope behind the hype – especially when it comes to overcoming the challenges of limited health literacy. This plenary will inspire you to harness the power of design to drive real-world change in health care.
We’ll also discuss the practical implications of adopting new technology including:
- What we know about how literacy affects the way a user reads and processes information on a screen
- What to consider when evaluating the usability and accessibility of these new digital health tools
- What are the implications of the increasing use of artificial intelligence and natural language processing as a gateway to decision making in our work
- What we know about the potential risks to privacy and weaponized health communication
Together, we can ensure that new digital health tools – from voice-activated virtual assistants to patient portals – are inclusive, accessible, and easy-to-use for everyone, especially adults with limited health literacy skills.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe at least 3 examples of how digital technologies as used by government, academicians, private industry, and consumers will in the future address some of the nation’s most pressing health literacy challenges.
- Identify 3 characteristics to consider when evaluating the accessibility and usability of digital health tools.
- Explain the benefits of engaging patients and the public in designing digital health tools, particularly people with limited health literacy skills.
- Describe both the promises and perils of a technology enhanced future for addressing health literacy.
Networking Refreshment Break
3:00 pm - 3:15 pm
Breakout Sessions (Morning sessions repeat in same rooms.)
3:15 pm - 4:45 pm
Free Time / Poster Presenters Set Up
4:45 pm - 6:00 pm
Poster Session / Opening Night Reception / Exhibits
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Friday, May 3rd
Morning
Registration
7:00 am - 3:00 pm
Breakfast
7:00 am - 7:50 am
Implicit Bias, Health Literacy, and Health Disparities
8:00 am - 8:55 pm
Stan Hudson, MA
Wisconsin Health Literacy
Understanding the nature of implicit bias can enhance how we communicate and interact with others. It has real impacts on health literacy and health equity. Using real life examples, this session highlights the crucial role bias plays in our intrapersonal assumptions and our interpersonal interactions. The session explores how unconscious cognitive biases are “hard-wired” into our brains and how they manifest among various social identities in healthcare to translate into health disparities. This signature session focuses on ways to identify and address unconscious bias for better communication and enhanced professional relationships, including provider/patient, professional/client, professional/consumer, professional/colleague, and teacher/learner. Common types of biases and numerous creative strategies for mitigating and disrupting implicit bias to enhance health literacy and health equity will be presented.
Attendees will be able to…
- Define implicit or unconscious bias and understand the role socialization plays in establishing and maintaining biases.
- Identify the impact of implicit bias on healthcare, health literacy, and health equity.
- Apply strategies for disrupting and reducing implicit bias as it relates to health literacy.
Breakout Sessions
*This year the breakout sessions are categorized by content domains established by the Job Analysis Task Force to describe competencies of a Health Literacy Specialist.
Patients candid thoughts are worth more than pennies: benefits and insights of the Think-Aloud Method to Develop Patient Resources
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Geri Lynn Baumblatt, MA
Articulations Consulting
Elizabeth Wick, MD
University of California San Francisco
* This is a Public Health domain course.
It’s often challenging to figure out what concepts confuse patients, how to clarify them, and how to address emotional components. One-on-one interviews using the think-aloud method let us get inside people’s thoughts to identify points of confusion and important insights as we make edits. We developed patient education booklets for surgical pathways implementation “toolkits” across several service lines. Interviews using the think-aloud method helped us identify problematic passages, iterate, and re-test them. Hear about the challenges and benefits of the approach, best practices, and qualitative data as these booklets are utilized at hospitals. Then it’s your turn to try it.
Will they actually use it? Teaching Effectively to Ensure Action on Healthcare Information
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Bonnie Ronan, MN, RN
*This is an Education domain course.
An important part of health literacy is actually using information that has been taught. How can we ensure that what we teach is acted on appropriately? Teach-back and principles of adult learning are important in making sure information is understood, but don’t guarantee the learner will actually use it. For healthcare education to be truly effective, it must be acted on. As with any skill, teaching effectively requires practice. In this interactive session participants will learn and apply practical strategies for both teaching and ensuring action on healthcare information.
A Community Based Initiative to Promote Health Literacy Among Individuals with Serious Mental Illness
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Lisa Razzano, PhD, CPRP
University of Illinois, Chicago
Nicole Pashka, MS, CRC, CPRP, LCPC
Thresholds
*This is a Community Engagement domain course.
This session summarizes factors in health literacy relevant to individuals with serious mental illnesses, including major depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. In particular, individuals with serious mental illnesses experience disparate rates of chronic physical illnesses including cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic, and infectious diseases. Presenters will review and discuss a major community-based health literacy initiative specifically aimed to address chronic physical health conditions among those with psychiatric illnesses, results of a longitudinal survey, including self-management and other health practices, and methods to implement and sustain these services within integrated community mental health settings. Strategies to improve workforce competencies also will be described.
How to effectively incorporate health literacy PDSA Cycles into Becoming Health Literate Organizations Across A Network of Provider Types
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Celina Ramsey
Staten Island Performing Provider Systems
Emilie Tippins
Brightpoint Health and Community Health Action of Staten Island
John Mastellone
Community Health Action of Staten Island
Kristin Mouton, MBA
Staten Island Performing Provider Systems
Susan Wittich, BS
Eger Health Care and Rehabilitation Center
*This is an Organizational Systems and Policies domain course.
PDSA cycles measuring organizational effectiveness of Health Literacy tools can be used for quality improvement initiatives across a variety of types of health care service providers. This session would share program implementation, activities and results of a PPS network using tools 1-5, 11, 12, 14, and 16 from AHRQ's Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit. Upon Analysis of HEDIS performance measures and CGCAHPS survey results we have seen outcomes trending positively for Medicaid beneficiaries and the uninsured since the start of our Health Literacy initiative in 2016.
Afternoon
Closing Plenary
10:30 am - 11:00 am
Michael Villaire, MSLM
Institute for Healthcare Advancement
Rima Rudd, ScD
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health