The Healthcare Industry is paramount to any nation’s economy. A vibrant
healthcare industry ensures a healthy nation, and ensures a flourishing lifestyle for its
citizens. It is vital to adopt simple modes of communications between healthcare
professionals and their patients. One such way to improve communications in healthcare
is by using readability formulas on documents as a means to communicate effectively
with staff, patients, and healthcare suppliers.
Using readability formulas in the healthcare industry offers many benefits, such
as:
1. Readability formulas ensure healthcare employees can read and understand
documentation and instruction manuals of medical equipments, such as X-ray machines,
ultrasound machines, dental chairs, etc. Readable manuals ensure healthcare employees
can:
(a) properly install medical equipment without technical error arising out of an
installation problem; and
(b) use medical equipment according to instruction to avoid wrong diagnosis due
to mishandling the equipment.
Ideally, most healthcare manuals should be written at a fifth or sixth grade reading
level. Studies show that most Americans read at a fifth or sixth grade reading level.
2. Readability formulas can improve patient education and awareness.
Patients need to understand their ailments, prescribed drugs, risks and side effects of the
drugs, clinical tests, when to contact their doctors, when to seek immediate medical
attention, and so on. All of this is accomplished by communicating with the patient
through written communications, verbal instructions, multimedia, etc. Many patients need
written instructions for long-term reference, and they need to understand their healthcare
material in simple terms. Using readability formulas can help hospitals prepare
documentation that patients can read and understand at their reading-level.
3. Studies show certain revealing facts. For instance, adults with low literacy
skills: a) have a poorer health status; b) their average health costs are six times higher; c)
they are less likely to comply with medication regimens; and d) they are less likely to
understand their illnesses. These results show that patients are more vulnerable to grave
dangers when we consider serious ailments like diabetes, heart disorder, asthma, cancer,
and nerves-related sickness, etc. Many hospitals use the SMOG Readability Formula on
their written health material to preempt these risks and help healthcare professionals
develop user-friendly readable text. Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Readability
Formulas are also useful in writing and simplifying healthcare material.
4. For overall effective disease management, it is vital the
doctor-patient-pharmacist communication is as clear as possible. If the written text is
beyond the reading abilities of the patient, he cannot understand the measures he needs to
take to manage his disease. If the pharmacist can’t understand the prescription from a
doctor, there’s every chance the pharmacist could give a wrong medication to the patient.
Readability formulas can help health professionals prevent such unfortunate events.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Scott is a contributing writer for Literacy News and a writing tutor for Writing Answers.
