AHRQ Study Identifies Nearly Two Dozen Measures for Improving Organizations’ Health Literacy

An AHRQ-funded project recently identified 22 quality improvement measures to help healthcare organizations monitor strategies to improve patients’ health literacy. Instead of developing new organizational health literacy measures, researchers sought to identify measures already shown to help patients understand health information, navigate the healthcare system, engage in the healthcare process and manage their health. A literature review, field interviews and other tactics helped researchers identify and evaluate 233 quality improvement measures overall. An expert panel found 22 measures were useful, meaningful, feasible and effective. Study authors concluded that future efforts should be aimed at generating measures for additional health literacy topics. Access the abstract for the study, published in HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice.