Cultural Diversity
Culture Clues™

Health Literacy: Information for Clinicians

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Patient Education
Links to Other Health Sites

PFES Newsletters
Index

Easy Writer
Easy Writer Classes
Easy Writer Worksheets

Patient Education Classes
Patient Education Classes

PFES Location
1910 Fairview Ave E #302
Seattle, WA 98102
(206) 598-7498
Contact Us

OTHER UWMC LINKS
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UWMC Departmental Web Sites with Patient
Education
Anti-Coagulation Services
The Arthritis Source

Center of Excellence in Women's Health

General Surgery Clinic

Radiology/ImagingServices

Regional Heart Center

Shoulder and Elbow Service

Patient and Family Education Services (PFES) is a department within the University of Washington Medical Center that offers a variety of services and resources to support clinician access, development, and evaluation of patient education programs and materials.

PFES promotes health education that positively influences health outcomes and enables patients and their families to actively participate in their health care.

We are committed to health education that strengthens our partnership with patients and their families, and encourages wellness, self-care behaviors, informed health care decisions, coping with changes, and focuses on capabilities.

Ultimately, we’re here to help patients make their best choices about health! Among the PFES programs that accomplish this are:

• Health Online – an on-line intranet database of patient education materials used at UWMC, including ready-to-print documents, both English and foreign language.
• Coordination for translations of UWMC-authored patient education materials into the languages most commonly used in the medical center: Amharic, Arabic, Cambodian, Chinese, Farsi, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tigrigna, and Vietnamese.
• Forms and handout reviews by patient advisors, volunteers who have been trained to review documents written for patients and families, and to provide feedback on ways to make those documents easier to read and use.
• Cross-cultural clinician information through Culture Clues and Language Cards which feature tips to increase awareness about concepts and preferences of patients of diverse cultures.
• Easy Writer classes to teach UWMC staff how to write educational materials that patients and families will use.
• A quarterly newsletter, Patient Educator, to keep clinicians up-to-date on the latest patient education materials that have been written by UWMC staff, JCAHO and other policy information related to patient education, and ways to enhance patient and family teaching.
• Education for UWMC clinicians about patient health literacy, including a booklet, a Web site, and a training seminar.