Dr. Joe Geskey, vice president of medical affairs at OhioHealth Doctors Hospital in west Columbus, is board certified in pediatrics and internal medicine. But his focus took a turn toward health literacy after his father was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in 2009.
Geskey says his father ended up taking the incorrect doses of medication because he couldn’t understand the instructions, putting him at high risk of negative interactions and dangerous levels of narcotics.
“It was an unmitigated disaster and very well may have had a bad outcome.” - Dr. Joe Geskey
Health literacy is the ability to understand health information, most often the information that a doctor gives to a patient, in order to make effective health care decisions. About one-third of patients have low health literacy, which can steer them away from preventive care and best practices, and toward risky behavior.
During an appointment, doctors generally spend about one minute on education, and patients forget about 50 percent of the information presented to them, Geskey says. Patients are set up to fail and then they are labeled as non-compliant when they repeatedly fail to follow instructions or come to appointments.
To improve health literacy and health outcomes, Geskey is working with a pilot program at Doctors Hospital. Health care providers in this program screen patients for health literacy just as doctors screen for any other problem during a check-up. If a patient has low or limited health literacy, a plan is put in place to help engage with the patient more and increase his or her understanding of the health care at hand.
With this plan, after a patient is discharged from the hospital, Geskey and a registered practical nurse will go to the patient’s house to help with outpatient care. The nurse and two members of the OhioHealth Home Health program will visit three more times in the three weeks that follow to help patients reach their goals.
Geskey helps patients achieve these goals by asking them one thing they wish they could do, that they were able to do before their affliction. He then takes smaller steps until they can reach this goal.
“Instead of you adjusting to me, I’m adjusting to you, and I’m framing what you need to do for you to get that goal.” - Dr. Joe Geskey
These four, one-hour sessions help motivate patients toward recovery. It also allows the Home Health team to work with the patient’s primary care physician to continue with assistance after the initial four weeks.
The program improves health care providers’ levels of empathy toward patients, Geskey says, and helps them reach mutually beneficial solutions, which allow patients to take control over their lives again. There is also a societal benefit in that resource expenses decrease greatly when patients better understand their health care.
The program has resulted in a 40 percent cutback on readmission to the hospital within 30 days. Geskey hopes to expand the program and use it to create a better system for patients and doctors, who he believes will appreciate the benefits of the program.
“Most people that go into medicine still have a sense of idealism and a sense of humanism and a sense of compassion,” Geskey says.
Emily Hetterscheidt is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
Dr. Joe Geskey
Dr. Joe Geskey received his doctorate of osteopathy from New England College in 1994. His internship was at Heart of Lancaster Regional Medical Center, and his residency was at Penn State University’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in internal medicine and pediatrics, both of which he is board certified in. He also received his master’s of business administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and he is currently enrolled in the masters of the population health program at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
