Note-taking during the visit or specific written instructions postvisit are other methods proposed to improve recall and improve treatment engagement. Patients also share these notes with family members, which can enhance decision-making skills and care because families can better support a patient through difficult decisions and treatments when they have all the necessary medical information. Allowing patients to have access to clinician notes through OpenNotes after the visit makes patients feel more in control of their care and improves information recall and medication adherence. Providing patients with an after visit summary (AVS) within 3 days of the clinic visit is a key requirement of Meaningful Use of an electronic health record (EHR), stage 1. There have been several advances toward addressing this information recall problem. When patients find it difficult to comprehend health care information during the visit, they are in turn less able to recall information following the visit. Low health literacy is associated with a reduction in the ability of patients to self-manage and interpret health messages and medication labels. Lack of health literacy-the ability to perform basic reading and numerical tasks required to function in a health care environment -exacerbates the challenge of patient recall and understanding of health information and affects 59% of adults over 65 years in the United States.

Difficulty recalling health information is amplified when patients are emotionally charged.

Poor knowledge of medical conditions has been identified as a significant barrier to self-management of health conditions associated with lower health status. Higher recall of medical information is associated with improved disease management, treatment adherence, and higher patient satisfaction however, recall of medical information is often low, with 40% to 80% of medical information from a clinical visit forgotten immediately by patients.

Research computing dartmouth stata mp