Group items tagged

"Empowering patients to have greater agency in, and control over health decisions. A patient's health literacy is their ability to read, understand and use health care information to make informed decisions and modify behaviours that affect their personal healthcare needs. Promoting health literacy among patients creates a more collaborative care environment, one that empowers patients to have greater agency in, and control over, their own care decisions. CCMI's Health Literacy programs introduce participants to concepts that support and emphasize the importance of being able to support patients and communicate clearly so that patients and family members can truly participate in care. Participants will gain an understating of Health Literacy concepts and learn practical skills for engaging with patients to ensure clear and effective communication."

Advances in wearable device and home blood pressure monitoring technology offer promising opportunities to characterise population health and to improve understanding of cardiovascular disease risk. These devices also allow for remote longitudinal patient monitoring, increased engagement and health literacy, and delivery of personalised behavioural interventions all while reducing overall health-care costs.1 Various health systems and start-ups seek to combine these data with clinical information from the electronic medical record, and several insurance companies are already trying to incentivise the uptake of wearable devices.2

"While citizen science is gaining attention of late, for those of us involved in community-based public health research, community/citizen involvement in research has steadily increased over the past 50 years. Community Health Workers (CHWs), also known as Promotores de Salud in the Latino community, are critical to reaching underserved populations, where health disparities are more prevalent. CHWs/Promotores provide health education and services and may also assist with the development and implementation of community- and clinic-based research studies. Recognizing that CHWs typically have no formal academic training in research design or methods, and considering that rigor in research is critical to obtaining meaningful results, we designed instruction to fill this gap. We call this educational initiative "Building Research Integrity and Capacity" or BRIC. The BRIC training consists of eight modules that can be administered as a self-paced training or incorporated into in-person, professional development geared to a specific health intervention study. While we initially designed this culturally-grounded, applied ethics training for Latino/Hispanic community research facilitators, BRIC training modules have been adapted for and tested with non-Latino novice research facilitators. This paper describes the BRIC core content and instructional design process."

"You've probably heard a lot about coronavirus testing recently. If you think you have coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and need a test, contact your health care provider, local pharmacy, or local health departmentExternal Link Disclaimer immediately. The FDA has been working around the clock to increase the availability of critical medical products, including tests for the coronavirus, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about the different types of tests and the steps involved."

The video on this page seems to be solid information for raising health information literacy. What does the group think?

"With approximately 133M Americans (more than 40% of the US population) suffering from one or more chronic diseases, the healthcare community is looking for more effective and efficient ways to manage chronic diseases. Part of that pursuit is in finding sustainable ways to help patients better understand their conditions and manage their health by empowering patients, connecting them to information, care, and therapies in ways they want. Join fellow innovators to work on a challenging, multi-faceted, meaningful opportunity to advance clinical care, quality of life, and outcomes for nearly half the US. How can we improve patient literacy and clinical understanding? How do we help patients feel more in-control of their medical care? What can be done to help patients understand when and where they should seek care? These are just some of the pain points begging for thoughtful, tech-enabled solutions."

"Elspeth Murray recites the poem that was included at the International Initiative in Mental Health Leadership Conference in Edinburgh in 2006, where she conducted poetry workshops."

Recommended by DeAunne Denmark MD Phd: "...the immune system is very complicated. Arguably the most complex part of the human body outside the brain, it's an absurdly intricate network of cells and molecules that protect us from dangerous viruses and other microbes. These components summon, amplify, rile, calm, and transform one another: Picture a thousand Rube Goldberg machines, some of which are aggressively smashing things to pieces. Now imagine that their components are labeled with what looks like a string of highly secure passwords: CD8+, IL-1β, IFN-γ. Immunology confuses even biology professors who aren't immunologists"

Recommended by DeAunne Denmark MD PhD: Serious Illness Digital Ecosystem (SIDE) is the intentional aggregation of disparate digital and mobile health technologies into a single system that connects all of the actors involved in serious illness patient care. The 5 pillars of a SIDE are: Identification, Education, Engagement, Service Delivery, and Remote Monitoring. To me, this is just a preliminary and pragmatic first step(s). It also misses or misrepresents large care gaps, e.g. framing as the need for education/engagement of patients vs directing to physicians/providers. That said, I think there are still some useful constructs for us here for digital infrastructure.

"American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) President Dr. Carmen Wiley gives an overview of PCR testing, which is the most common type of test for COVID-19 and the one that patients are currently most likely to encounter."

Recommended by DeAunne Denmark MD PhD: " How did it come to this? A virus a thousand times smaller than a dust mote has humbled and humiliated the planet's most powerful nation. America has failed to protect its people, leaving them with illness and financial ruin. It has lost its status as a global leader. It has careened between inaction and ineptitude. The breadth and magnitude of its errors are difficult, in the moment, to truly fathom.

"Palliative care is an interprofessional specialty focused on symptom management, quality of life, and relief of distress for patients who are living with serious illness and their families. The UCSF Interprofessional Palliative Care Continuing Education Course (Practice-PC) was created in 2015 to address a workforce shortage that is a key limiting factor in the dissemination of palliative care."

"Welcome to "COVID-19: The CIDRAP Viewpoint." Our intent with the Viewpoint series is to add key information regarding the pandemic, address issues that haven't garnered the attention they deserve, and reflect the unique expertise among the CIDRAP team and our expert consultants. In this periodic series of reports we will address timely issues with straight talk and clarity. And the steps we recommend will be based on our current reality and the best available data. Our goal is to help planners envision some of the situations that might present themselves later this year or next year so that they can take key steps now, while there's still time. Upcoming reports will address supply chains, epidemiologic issues, key areas for research, and other pressing topics."

Recommended by Sharon Wampler: MD PhD by "By June, clinicians were swapping journal papers, news stories, and tweets describing more than three dozen ways that COVID-19, the disease the coronavirus causes, appears to manifest itself. Now researchers at UC San Francisco and around the world have begun taking a closer look at this dizzying array of symptoms to get at the disease's root causes. They are learning from people inside the hospital and out; people on the brink of death and only mildly sick; people newly exposed and recovered; people young and old, Black, brown, and white. And they are beginning to piece together the story of a virus unlike any known before."