Many medical patients are now able to directly access their electronic health records (EHR). Providing such direct access has been shown to lead to improved healthcare outcomes through the patient’s enhanced understanding of their medical conditions and treatment. However, EHR contain medical jargon that challenge populations with lower health literacy. Low health literacy is associated with several negative health outcomes, including failure to follow up on doctor’s orders and repeat health problems.
ComprehENotes is the first ever tool that helps clinicians assess the health literacy of their patients with regard to EHR, identifying areas of weakness that they need to work to improve with their patients. The tool is test comprising a series of multiple choice questions that assess patients’ understanding across six major health conditions: cancer, COPD, diabetes, heart failure, hypertension, and liver failure. The questions were administered to hundreds of respondents, and natural language processing was used to evaluate and verify the effectiveness of the questions in gauging patient comprehension.
