HJNO Jul/Aug 2021

HEALTH LITERACY Q&A 16 JUL / AUG 2021 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS   Thank you for taking time to discuss health literacy and how healthcare professionals can communicate better with patients and their caretakers. We would like to start with your definition of health literacy and Ochsner’s mission for health literacy. I think the best definition of heath literacy comes fromHealthy People 2020 (US Dept of HHS), which defines it as “the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.” Ochsner’s overall mission is to serve, heal, lead, edu- cate and innovate. When it comes to health literacy, we recognize that social determi- nants of health can affect health literacy and become barriers to communication and ulti- mately to maintaining health. While we will always have more to learn and understand, Ochsner has made a significant commit- ment toward recognizing health disparities and reaching out to populations within our community where health inequities exist. In addition, we take a proactive approach to health literacy by using screening tools and innovative techniques to reach patients of all literacy levels. In fact, we recently aligned our language services teamwith our patient experience division to ensure our work to reduce language barriers remains a focus in our overall experience of care. What attracted you to this field? Caring one-on-one for patients over the last 30 years, I have come to appreciate the importance of developing a relationship with my patients. As a wound care provider, I realized that the more patients trusted me as their provider, the more engaged they became in their own care. Through that level of partnership, we could achieve bet- ter clinical outcomes. I started studying what exactly went into developing these relationships so that I could teach it to oth- ers. It became a passion of mine to share with my colleagues the skills for develop- ing relationships. Salespeople are trained to repeat important points of a sales call three times, because even when you are sitting across from someone and have their perceived undivided attention, sales experts know it takes three times for something to sink in. For healthcare providers, communicating health information to a patient is one of the most important aspects of care. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see in this area, and which communication methods have you found most effective for practitioners? We have a very robust department of patient experience led by myself and my triad partners, Jennifer Bollinger, SVP, and Alison Soileau, VP. Our team places sig- nificant focus on communication, and we have branded our program “Caring Com- munication,” which consists of two main components. First, we acknowledge that anxiety is the greatest barrier to effective Chantal Lorio, DPM, MSHCM, FACHE, FACPM, ACC SystemMedical Director of Patient Experience Physician Executive Coach Ochsner Health Chantal Lorio, DPM, MSHCM, FACHE, FACPM, ACC, is the system medical director of patient experience and system chair of the podiatry department for Ochsner Health. She also serves as vice-president of the Louisiana Podiatric Medical Association. She previously served as medical director of wound care andchief of podiatric surgery forEast JeffersonGeneralHospital. Lorioearneda master’s degree in healthcaremanagement from the University of NewOrleans anda graduate certificate inexecutive coaching fromUniversityofTexas, Dallas. Lorio is an associate certified coach by the International Coaching Federation and is a national patient experience consultant for Huron Consulting Group.