Berlin – Studies in recent years have shown that many people in Germany find it difficult to deal with health-related information. But how is it possible to improve the health literacy of organizations and what role does the health professions play in this? These aspects will be highlighted at today’s Health Competence Forum, a joint event organized by the Federal Government Commissioner for Patient Concerns and the Health Knowledge Foundation.
In order to do something good for yourself and your health, you have to know how. Finding information on relevant issues, understanding it, assessing it and then using it for oneself – all this means health literacy. So far, the focus has mostly been on the population: How competent people are in dealing with their health depends on individual abilities. However, this is also strongly influenced by how easy or difficult it is made for them in their environment – the health system and its organizations as well as those working in it – to get information or advice and support services.
“So that health literacy can develop, it is also important how conducive the framework conditions and structures in the respective healthcare facilities are and whether sufficient resources are available for this,” explains Stefan Schwartze, patient representative of the federal government. “We support various projects to strengthen health literacy in organizations. The health literacy compass discussed today is a project with great potential. This gives interested parties from the healthcare sector a diverse set of methods for advancing the strengthening of healthcare competence in their organisation,” so black. In this way, the individual abilities, needs and concerns of patients can be specifically addressed on site. “With this and other project examples, together with the Health Knowledge Foundation, we are showing the possibilities that already exist today to strengthen and expand organizational and professional health competence in the healthcare sector.”
The health professions and professions, especially doctors and nurses, are of great importance. They are still the first point of contact for questions about health and illness and represent an important source of information, as a study by the Health Knowledge Foundation showed. “In order to be able to strengthen people’s health literacy, health professionals must also be able to prepare, convey and communicate health-related specialist knowledge and corresponding information in such a way that they can be understood and used by their patients,” explains PD Dr. Ralf Suhr, Chairman of the Health Knowledge Foundation. In German-speaking countries, this “professional health competence” has hardly been examined to date. “I am therefore particularly pleased that we are able to present the results of a pilot study to you today, in the context of which a concept for measuring professional health competence was developed for the first time and also tested for two major professional groups in the German health care system – namely for doctors and for nursing ,” emphasizes Suhr. The results of the study on professional health competence, which were developed in cooperation with the Hertie School, the University of Bielefeld and the Health Knowledge Foundation, offer comprehensive data on the challenges that health professionals face in terms of communication, among other things. Although the doctors and nurses surveyed rate their own health skills as good overall, there are areas that are rated as difficult.
The aim of today’s joint event is to provide impetus so that health care facilities can also be enabled to react appropriately to the health competence of patients and to give them orientation in the care process based on their individual skills and abilities.
Health Literacy Forum 2023:
In today’s joint event of Federal Government Commissioner for the issues of patients and the Health Knowledge Foundation The current results and research findings on organizational and professional health competence are presented in the Federal Ministry of Health.
Forum Health Competence 2023 Organizational and Professional Health Competence: Where do we stand in Germany?
June 20, 2023, 10:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m
at the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG)
Friedrichstrasse 108
10117 Berlin
The event will be broadcast live. Here is the live stream:
About the Health Knowledge Foundation:
The non-profit, operational health knowledge foundation based in Berlin wants to strengthen the competence of people in Germany with regard to health and prevention and to reduce the information asymmetries between doctor and patient. To this end, it creates, among other things, health information that is understandable for laypeople on the basis of current scientific findings, shows prevention options and treatment alternatives and promotes health knowledge in general. The sponsor is the Association of Private Health Insurance.