Improving student understanding of health literacy through experiential learning.

Low health literacy is a pervasive yet under-appreciated issue in contemporary healthcare. It has a significant impact on cost and quality indicators, and affects patients and professionals along the entire care continuum. Educators must sensitize healthcare administration students to the complexity of low health literacy, and teach strategies to address it. This project combined conceptual and experiential approaches to increase students' sensitivity to low health literacy by combining: (1) classroom discussion of health literacy; (2) healthcare environmental assessment; (3) interviews with healthcare administrators; (4) analysis of healthcare documents that patients use; and (5) reflections on the students' experiences, both individually and as a group. Students learned that awareness of and appreciation for issues around health literacy have the potential to improve the quality of patient care and patient outcomes. Experiential learning is the key to teaching students about health literacy. This pedagogical approach increases students' understanding of the patient experience and the challenges that low health literacy poses for all participants in the healthcare system.