22 2020 BAYCREST IMPACT
ENHANCING HEALTH
EDUCATION FOR CLIENTS,
FAMILIES AND CAREGIVERS
Health literacy is an important predictor of health – more important than socio-
economic status, age or education. Low health literacy directly affects the client
experience, and when abruptly faced with a serious health condition, anyone can
experience low health literacy – no matter who you are, what you know or what
you do.
For this reason, Baycrest is enhancing health literacy supports for staff, clients,
residents, families and caregivers, with the goal of improving access to reliable
health information, providing actionable content and breaking down the barriers
to understanding.
To this end, Baycrest's Centre for Education established the Patient, Family and
Consumer Education (PFCE) program, which recently designed and implemented
a discovery and current state needs assessment to examine our organizational
health literacy culture, evaluate patient education practices and identify any
practice gaps, and bring existing education activities under a shared and
integrated framework. The PFCE initiative engaged diverse stakeholders, including
leaders, clinicians, patients, families and the broader community, to voluntarily
participate in this project.
As a result, a comprehensive report of the current state of client and family
education practice at Baycrest was established. This report includes five strategic
directions to:
