Health Literacy and Helping Your Patients Maintain Compliance Over the Holidays
COVID-19, the holidays, and bad weather can all make it difficult for patients to follow their treatment plans. In this Mental Health Minute, Charles Lee, MD, explains how health literacy can help.
It can be hard for patients to keep up with their medications over the holidays. In this Mental Health Minute, Charles Lee, MD, explains the importance of health literacy and offers several pieces of advice, for both clinicians and their patients. Highlights include:
1. Make sure that patients have an extra week or 2 of their prescription in case of further lockdowns or adverse weather events
2. Keep track of prescriptions in 1 place, so that patients can easily access information about them
3. Read the labels and ask pharmacists about changes in dosage or requirements
4. Stay in regular contact with prescribers and give timely updates
Dr Lee is senior advisor for health literacy and language barriers at First Databank (FDB) and adjunct assistant professor at the School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
