Buy essay on Healthcare Literacy

From the second part of the 20th century we’ve been living in the information era. Due to the development of various media and technical devices the amounts of information we go through every day is enormously exceeding our ability to adopt it. And hence, while earlier you were under threat to get into trouble because you didn’t have enough information, today you are in trouble because of too much extra information, coming from different sources, including traditional communication with people, TV, radio, newspapers and magazines, electronic sources, the Internet, advertisement and so on. And we are simply not able to control all the channels and therefore we get manipulated by those who create those pieces of information. Medicine is not an exception.
The problem of healthcare literacy is urgent now, as having too much information, a health man has even more chances to die from serious disease than one already having all the symptoms and diagnosis out. To protect ourselves from disinformation, we should be able to distinguish right and wrong, true and false data, to see reasons and investigate results not to be trapped by information we don’t need at all.
At the same time the more we know about ourselves, the more potential we have to take care of our health. Though, this is a medal with two sides. Healthcare literacy is not only the ability to read and write what is connected with health and healthcare. It is generally explained as the ability to achieve, interpret and comprehend crucial health information, data and services, and in the meantime it is an ability to become competent and motivated to apply this information and the spectrum of services available (Friedman, 1978).
The problems that appear in this sphere have not only social roots, but economical context as well. Public health services are not practiced widely, and all the services in private hospitals are not free of charge, and to get access to most of them you should have insurance. But to get the latter you should also have funds, and thus the conditions of life turn into a closed circle.
Moreover, healthcare literacy becomes a kind of cultural problem too.
Especially this problem is spread among those who lack good knowledge of English language, those LEP, or limited English proficiency audiences and speakers with English as a second language (ESL). They face many problems being restricted in everyday life, professional growth and broken cultural links, but health is one of the most important, let me say vitally important values a man possesses, so it is very important to protect their right for appropriate health care. First of all they should know their rights and be as aware as possible of all their opportunities. For example, there is a special program for Mexican Americans with functional health illiteracy. They are upgraded because while leaving their natural surroundings they change their role needs and have to reject their cultural beliefs. The caregivers provide learning materials and help to understand the perceptions of healthcare providers (Cagle, & Wells, 2010).
Now many non-governmental organizations are concerned of proving effective communication of health associated information. Public policy is also engaged, and federal programs on rising public health awareness are being developed, but still they are not enough. In the United States, for example, today about 78 million citizens are healthcare illiterate, regardless of their background, education, social and economic status. Among the effective actions are the webinars organized by viaLanguage. ViaLanguage is known as a leader in healthcare interpretation and website localization services. They help to do away with various difficulties of healthcare literacy and encourage public agencies as well as all the interested parties to discuss strategies which could be helpful if employed by organizations to plot a course against the language barriers faced by managers (Cagle, & Wells, 2010). Such actions as the webinars mentioned above encourage best organizations to share their experience with other employers and clients. Each corporation should understand that heath of their employees is their concern, and shouldn’t leave healthcare illiteracy without attention. So they are obliged to sponsor the programs and provide all the necessary information. It is also helpful to talk about dieticians and nutritionists, to spread information through electronic media, and encourage extra curricular activities for the employees.
It goes without saying that one needs assistance in this uncertain and fast-moving healthcare environment. It is important to learn to be able to understand what is told by the doctor, what is written in the instructions and encyclopedias, or in the Web, to distinguish common people’s pieces of advice from competent recommendations. This is related first of all to information about you, your state of body and state of mind, that is to say your physical and mental health. When you seriously ill, you need to sign this or that doctor’s decision. But the matter is the doctors are usually interested not in patients, but in their diseases. They have their scientific goals, and no one but you will take care who you will be after surgery or even some dangerous test. Not to sign your death sentence, you should be really capable to take or to deny those decisions.
Still it doesn’t mean you should reject competent medical aid and give no trust to doctors. You should never medicate yourself. This is the first and the main rule of an informed patient.
It is also necessary to remember that each patient has not only rights, but also responsibilities. One of the main responsibilities a patient should follow is asking questions (Williams, 1987). To escape maximum risks, you should be aware of danger. But it is a high risk not to know that you understand something in a wrong way or don’t understand it at all. To understand even this, you should have some base. And this is healthcare illiteracy in work.
One of the aspects is to comprehend your medications, because it is affecting your health status to a great extent and your general outcomes as well. There are two essential moments concerning this problem. On the one hand we are every day attacked by numerous fragments of advertisements where we are persuaded to use this or that new and universal medicines. Each one is better than another one, beginning with those against headache and nausea and ending with cancer and bareness. People on TV look happy and much healthier than patients at hospitals using medicines prescribed by doctors. So the patient goes to his doctor and asks to prescribe another medicine. Or even he goes straight to the pharmacist, but the blame for unexpected results still lies on hospital. Sometimes a doctor has even more bother when he has to find out how the patient tried to treat himself but actually only making matters worse.
On the other hand, hospitals and doctors in particular highly depend on their sponsors. Sometimes they are supported by some pharmaceutical companies, but in turn for their financial assistance they demand the doctors to promote their new medications. And the doctor has to prescribe it even if he doesn’t believe in its efficiency.
One more variant is interacting with your friends or relatives who have disorder in the same system but truly have the other diagnosis. You shouldn’t think that if one medicine helped someone, it will help you too. The reaction of an organism is commonly individual, and if the doctor can take to account your anamnesis, your friend can have absolutely the other story. The thing saving him from pain can result in your death (Sade, 2001).
Some patients even don’t know the names of the medications they are given, and hence they can simply mix them up by appearance and spoil all their treatment. Kathy Quan, for instance, tells the story about the woman who had to take Lanoxin to slow and normalize heart rate. Her friend took nitroglycerin against angina (Arrow, 2003). Both of them had small white tablets. But while the first was prescribed to drink her medicine only once a day (because it was toxic and dangerous), the second took her medicine at each discomfort in chest. The first lady once knowing about her friend’s program decided to use her tablets against chest pain too and finally, after having taken three tablets within an hour, she got to the reanimation and hardly managed to survive.
Therefore the patient should upgrade his healthcare literacy – in fact, he has no other way out.
Before you go to the doctor, you should prepare as thoroughly as possible. You should take a note of all your symptoms and signs, be careful to remember your previous healthcare experience, try not to intensify your sufferings. Learn how to describe your pain exactly (burning or sore, stabbing, constant or blinking). It would be also useful to take your spouse or elative with you who can provide additional information helpful in putting the diagnosis. Get information about the tests you should go through. Then ask the doctor why and what medications you are taking, what effects you should wait for and how soon, what are the side effects, and when to come again. But be careful not to be too annoying, because nobody likes it when dilettantes stuck their nose in their professional deal.
As any other kind of education, healthcare education is the key to accepting your health status and how to get it better or keep it up. In our days healthcare delivery system has changed much, and it is important to adjust to it.
So, healthcare literacy is an essential issue influencing health care these days. Understanding the healthcare system with all its nuances results in more gratifying healthcare experiences.

References
Arrow, K. (2003). Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care. American Economic Review, 53: 941-73.
Cagle, C. S., & Wells, J. N. (2010). Healthcare literacy. Clinical journal of oncology nursing, 14, 201-18.
Nursing Oncology Nursing Society. Clinical Journal of Oncology, 14 (1), 2010.
Friedmen, D. (1978). The Machinery of Freedom. New York: Arlington House Publishers.
Sade, R. M. (2001). Medical care as a right: a refutation. N Engl J Med. 285(23): 1288-92.
Williams, A. (ed.). (1987). Health and Economics. Macmillan: London.