“Sagen – Fragen – Verstehen” – Towards health literate health organisations in Vienna

The concept of health literate health care organisation (HLHO) was introduced in 2012. Organisational health literacy is defined as an effort to transform and develop organisations (in the health sector) to enable users and employees to navigate, understand and use information and services to take care of their health.

To support hospitals and long-term care facilities in Vienna to become HLHO the Vienna health promotion (WiG) has set up a project (2017 - 2021) with 11 pilot units from 5 care institutions. Starting with an interprofessional self-assessment tool (SAT) on HLHO, most modules, like employee and patient/next of kin empowerment, trainings to improve the quality of staff-patient communication as well as workshops on health literacy are being carried out concurrently and similarly by all pilot units. In addition, pilot units implement local organisational development projects addressing issues identified in their SAT. As part of process monitoring pilot unit project leads meet regularly in workshops to discuss their learnings and project progress.

Preliminary results show that health literacy workshops in participating institutions are well-received, also the joined learning in the regular project lead workshops. Many employees in the participating institutions took part in project-associated evaluation measures. Communication trainings were very popular, especially the use of simulated patients was rated highly. Project impact on doctor-patient-communication is currently being evaluated.

Health literacy workshops seem appropriate to sensitise employees for the importance of patient-staff communication, but are challenging in terms of organisation. The SAT was considered useful to approach the topic of HLHO, but was perceived as somewhat lengthy. The interprofessional approach to the SAT could be a barrier for some institutions. Developing handouts in cooperation with persons concerned can be challenging but is highly gainful.

Key messages

As result of this project the 11 participating pilot units are one step closer to becoming HLHO. The concept of HLHO seems useful in improving health literacy.

Harmonisation of rat fetal skeletal terminology and classification. Report of the Third Workshop on the Terminology in Developmental Toxicology. Berlin, 14-16 September 2000

The initial efforts of the Federal Institute for Health Protection of Consumers and Veterinary Medicine (BgVV) and the Free University of Berlin to standardise terminology in the field of developmental toxicology began in 1995. Procedures were undertaken to harmonise the terminology used by the International Federation of Teratology Societies (IFTS) and the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS). This article reflects these activities and is a report on the Third Workshop on the Terminology in Developmental Toxicology held in September 2000. This Workshop served as a forum to discuss the results of a survey on the classification of skeletal anomalies that had been previously sent to scientists active in the field. Although high agreement was reached among the evaluators for several terms, the use of a number of terms was rather variable. Therefore, the discussions at the workshop among the experts from research institutions, regulatory agencies, and industry were mainly focussed on those terms for which there was disagreement and/or uncertainties and the possible reasons. Pictures provided by the participants for the illustration of "grey zone" anomalies constituted the basis for detailed discussions. In many of the cases with lower agreement, decisions were facilitated by the provision of the corresponding picture. The main reasons for lower agreement were imprecise terms, insufficient knowledge on postnatal consequences, theoretical terms that are unlikely to occur in isolation, and the possibility of observing a range of severity that might be decisive for the classification of either a malformation or variation. The attendees concluded that "grey-zone" anomalies will never disappear completely and that for the assessment, the grade of severity and/or the frequency of the observation can be decisive for the terminology chosen. A Joint IPCS/IFTS Project was proposed to further consensus of terminology and classification and to link these anomalies to pictures at different skeletal sites. In order to support the harmonisation of regulatory decisions, it was proposed to establish a "Clearinghouse" System under the umbrella of the IPCS. The Clearinghouse could be contacted either by the regulatory authorities or by any company to clarify their queries, particularly with regard to registration or authorisation processes. Finally, it was recommended to also carry out a similar survey on "soft tissue anomalies" and "external findings." The results of this survey will be discussed at a Joint IPCS/IFTS Workshop in Berlin in 2002.