National Competition Yields Best Practices in Health Literacy

Health Literacy Innovations Announces
2011 Health Literacy Innovators Award Winners    

October 20, 2011 (Bethesda, Md.) – Health Literacy Innovations, creators of the Health Literacy Advisor™ and Spanish HLA—Asesor de Comunicación en Salud™, the nation's first interactive health literacy software tool, today announced the winners of the 2011 National Health Literacy Innovators Award contest. Selected from more than 50 extremely competitive applications, HLI congratulates each of the first place winnersin the following categories:

• Champion Award: WellPoint, Inc., Plain Language Initiative
• ReadsEasy™ Publication Award: Accordant Health Services, Web Library Articles
• Clear Focus Multi-Media Award: Health Care Service Corporation, eCards for Health

"The growing number of exceptional applications and the sophistication, quality, and level of commitment to health literacy and plain language shows us how quickly the health care industry is responding to the demanding challenges health care providers now face," said Aracely Rosales, HLI's chief content and multi-lingual director.

"HLI would also like to thank its judges whose health literacy insight and knowledge rewarded best practices in health literacy, which helps to ensure that consumers, of all reading levels, have a better chance of understanding their health information," said Rosales.

The 2011 National Health Literacy Innovators judges are:

• Ariella Herman, PhD, Research Director, UCLA /J&J Health Care Institute, 2010 Health Literacy Innovator Award, Champion Award.
• Carolyn Cocotas, Senior Vice President, Quality and Corporate Compliance, F.E.G.S., Health and Human Services System, IOM Health Literacy Task Force Member.
• Julie Gazmararian, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University.
• Cecilia (Ceci) and Leonard (Len) Doak, Principles of Patient Learning Assoc. Inc., and authors of Teaching Patients with Low Literacy Skills.
• Julie McKinney, LINCS Health Literacy List Moderator, World Education, Inc.
• Linda Johnston Lloyd, MEd, Health Literacy Consultant, Retired from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• Marycelis Keiser, MPH, CHES, Health care Strategy & Communications Consultant.
• Matilde Alvarado, RN, MSN, Team Leader of the Community Health Worker Health Disparities Initiative National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• Greg Smith, Executive Director, Florida Literacy Coalition, 2010 Health Literacy Innovator Award, ReadsEasy™ Publication Award.
• Silje Lier, MPH, Multimedia Advisor, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

HLI congratulates the 2nd and 3rd place winner in each category:

Champion Finalists:

• 2nd place, Select Health of South Carolina Health Literacy Program
• 3rd place, Accordant Health Services, Journey to Understanding and Action

Clear Focus Finalists:

• 2nd place, The Cleveland Department of Public Health, Pandemic Influenza Social Media and Marketing Campaign
• 3rd place, Texas Heart Institute at CHI St. Luke’s Health - Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center  [Heart Information Center; view award certificate.]

ReadsEasy Finalists:

• 2nd place, California Department of Public Health, "An Ounce of Prevention"
• 3rd place, HealthEd Group, "Blood Pressure and Your Health"

About Health Literacy Innovations
Knowing that "literacy" is the single most important indicator of a health outcome, Health Literacy Innovations (HLI) creates tools to help eliminate medical mistakes and confusion due to low health literacy. HLI's flagship product, the Health Literacy Advisor (in Spanish—Asesor de Comunicación en Salud) is the nation's first, only, and most powerful health literacy software tool. As a "health literacy checker," the HLA streamlines the review and simplification process by allowing users to assess the readability of their documents and then fix it using plain language principles. By replacing inefficiency with technology and knowledge, the HLA applies nine well-known readability indices and an interactive search-and-replace function to replace hard-to-read terms and phrases and medical jargon with plain language alternatives. The combination of these two functions, a document "grade" with a readability score/grade level, and the ReadsEasy stamp (a reward for good work) sets the HLA software apart from programs or readability indices alone. For more information, please visit www.HealthLiteracyInnovations.com.

For THI media inquiries please contact:
Director of Public Affairs
Texas Heart Institute at CHI St. Luke’s Health - Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center 
Frank Michel  ♦  832-355-9510  ♦  fmichel@heart.thi.tmc.edu

For THI and St. Luke's media profiles, see Public Affairs.