Joanne Schwartzberg MD is Scholar-in-Residence for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Her career is filled with important accomplishments including many years of teaching, writing, researching, and creating healthcare policy. In my opinion, it’s also thanks in large part to Dr. Schwartzberg’s leadership at the American Medical Association (AMA) that the field of health literacy has flourished and grown.
In this podcast, Dr. Joanne Schwartzberg talks with Helen Osborne about:
- Why people of all reading abilities have trouble following instructions on medication labels.
- Ways that designers, pharmacists, scientific organizations, and others are working to improve the readability and usefulness of medication labels.
- How podcast listeners can be part of this effort to make medication labels better.
More ways to learn:
- Connor U, Wolf MS, Davis TC, et al, “To Err is Human: Patient Misinterpretation of Prescription Drug Label Instructions,” Patient Education and Counseling, Vol. 67, pp 293-300, 2007. Read abstract and download paper for free at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1863986
- S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), at http://www.usp.org/about-usp
- Wisconsin Health Literacy’s Medication Label Summit. Learn more at http://wisconsinliteracy.org/health-literacy/training-conferences/medication-label-summit/improving-prescribed-drug-labels-to-help-patient-understanding-a-medication-label-summit.html
Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Second Edition (Updated 2018), by Helen Osborne. Relevant chapters include: 1, 9, 26, 28, 37
Read the transcript of this podcast.
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