Why is healthcare so confusing? Navigating its complexity is the last thing a patient needs when their health is on the line. Yet, this confusion happens every day — even to career healthcare professionals who understand how the system works. Many startups have been launched to "fix healthcare" due to a founder's personal negative experience. The Health Resources and Services Administration defines health literacy as “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions.” Without healthcare literacy, navigating the complexities of the healthcare system becomes impossible. It is the foundation of patient self-advocacy. Addressing health literacy goes to the heart of literacy itself. It has as much to do with how information is presented as how it is understood. "Health literacy represents a lot of opportunity on the healthcare industry side. We can do a lot better than...

For hospitals, the question arises every three years: How can we conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment that delivers more insight for better population health with less burden ? Allocating appropriate resources and finding the bandwidth and expertise to execute a fully compliant CHNA is a challenge — particularly for first-time submissions or during strategic transitions. As hospitals prepare for their next CHNA, the following information can guide strategies to maximize assessment tools, metrics and analyses — all for better interventions and outcomes. Simplify a complex process without burdening staff. It’s difficult for hospitals to achieve efficiencies of scale for a process like CHNA that only occurs every three years. That’s why insight from experts consistently examining the process of CHNA year-round is so valuable. DataGen’s CHNA Advantage™ makes your assessment more robust without requiring additional staff or resources. CHNA Advantage’s turnkey tools and metrics apply...