Health IT and Health Literacy

Health information technology (IT) has become an important vehicle for providing heath information to consumers and is increasingly used to engage patients in their own care. Along with educating consumers, health IT is being used for self-care, informed and shared decisionmaking, connecting with heath care providers, communicating with others with similar health issues, and storing and accessing personal health records. However, the literacy level required to effectively use most health IT is much higher than that of a large share of the U.S. population, and its content and format pose considerable barriers as well. To support developers and purchasers of health IT—many of whom have little knowledge of populations with limited literacy and the technical standards and aspects of accessible health IT design— the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) supported the development of a guide and checklist. Our research found that to best serve users of health IT, information must be both accessible and usable. Thus, this guide describes the importance of universal design principles, overall guidelines for accessible health IT, and guidelines for specific health IT (i.e., websites, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, and home monitoring devices). Accessible health IT for limited-literacy populations will benefit both developers and purchasers by broadening the potential audience; increasing the understanding and usage for all populations, including those with higher literacy; and enhancing developers' and purchasers' reputation as they demonstrate expertise in reaching vulnerable populations.