Children's Hospital Receives Grant for Health Literacy
Children's Hospital Central California has received a grant of $25,000 from Cardinal Health to help ensure non-English speaking patient families understand how to care for their children after they are discharged.
(Vocus) April 14, 2008
Children's Hospital Central California has received a grant of $25,000 from Cardinal Health to help ensure non-English speaking patient families understand how to care for their children after they are discharged.
The grant will help support a program that provides telephone lines detailing discharge information for patients in three languages. When a patient is discharged the physician writes a discharge order and instructions. The child's nurse uses a medical interpreter to explain the instructions to the family, and then gives them a written instruction sheet. The new program will create individual audio recordings of those discharge instructions and upload them to a special phone line, accessible to the parents of the child for 30 days after discharge.
“Low health literacy is strongly related to poor health outcomes,” says Dr. Samuel Lehman, Medical Director of Patient Safety at Children's Hospital, “We know that up to 80% of all patients forget their physician's instructions as soon as they leave the doctor's office. Language difficulties compound this problem.”
Initially the program will provide audio instructions in Hmong, Mixteca and Spanish. Each recording will also include information encouraging patients and families to contact their doctor and request further information if they are unclear about any of the instructions. The idea is to help families stay better informed and therefore create better outcomes for their children.
The program has three objectives:
1. To enhance communication between the patient and caregivers.
2. To help families better understand discharge instructions, and reduce the change for medication errors or patient harm.
3. To encourage family and patient involvement in care.
This program is designed to be a foundation for a larger and more comprehensive health literacy program. Children's hopes to expand it to cover other care areas and other languages in coming years. The current program should be up and running in Fall 2008.
About Cardinal Health
Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, Cardinal Health, Inc. is an $87 billion, global company serving the health-care industry with products and services that help hospitals, physician offices and pharmacies reduce costs, improve safety, productivity and profitability, and deliver better care to patients. With a focus on making supply chains more efficient, reducing health care-associated infections and breaking the cycle of harmful medication errors, Cardinal Health develops market-leading technologies, including Alaris(R) IV pumps, Pyxis(R) automated dispensing systems, MedMined(TM) electronic infection surveillance service, VIASYS(R) respiratory care products and the CareFusion(TM) patient identification system. The company also manufactures medical and surgical products and is one of the largest distributors of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies worldwide. Ranked No. 19 on the Fortune 500, Cardinal Health employs more than 40,000 people on five continents. More information about the company may be found at www. cardinalhealth. com.
About Children's Hospital
We are a not-for-profit, state-of-the-art children's hospital on a 50-acre campus with a Medical Staff of more than 450 Physicians. In California, we treat more inpatient kids than any pediatric hospital north of San Diego, making us the second largest children's hospital in the state. Our 297 bed facility is one of the 10 largest hospitals of its type in the nation. We serve kids in a 45,000 square-mile region that stretches from Stockton to Bakersfield and the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
We are the first Children's hospital west of the Rockies to receive Magnet Nursing designation, the highest nursing benchmark in the world. We are accredited by the Joint Commission and we are very proud to have won the LeapFrog Group's national award for Patient Safety two years in a row.
We perform more than 9,000 pediatric surgeries a year and our Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care Units have some of the lowest mortality rates in the country while treating some of the sickest kids.
Our Craycroft Cancer Center is a full member of the nationally-recognized Children's Oncology Group (COG), and sees more than 100 new cases a year. Our Willson Heart Center has pioneered pediatric heart care for half a century.
We are the premiere pediatric medical center in the heart of the Golden State. We are Children's Hospital Central California - Amazing People, Incredible Care.
Media Information:
Micheline Golden
(559) 353-7049
Mgolden @ childrenscentralcal. org
Www. childrenscentralcal. org
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