Building upon the 2004 report Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion, the Institute of Medicine has convened a Roundtable on Health Literacy. The Roundtable brings together leaders from academia, industry, government, foundations and associations, and representatives of patient and consumer interests who have an interest and role in improving health literacy.

The mission of the Roundtable is to move forward the field of health literacy by translating research findings to practical strategies that can be implemented. To achieve this mission, the Roundtable discusses challenges facing health literacy practice and research, and identifies approaches to promote health literacy through mechanisms and partnerships in both the public and private sectors.

The Roundtable is sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Service's Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, National Cancer Institute, Health Resources and Services Administration, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service, Kaiser Permanente, Affinity Health Plan, Academy for Educational Development, American College of Physicians Foundation, American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation, American Heart Association, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and Merck.

Note: HOLD THE DATE for the Seventh Annual National Health Communication Conference, New Directions in Health Literacy, co-sponsored by the Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C. on November 19, 2008. The meeting will be held at the National Academy of Sciences Building 2100 C Street NW, Washington, DC.
This year’s conference will focus on the impact of low health literacy on healthcare quality, physicians’ practices, the linkages between literacy and health literacy, and medication label improvements.

There will be two keynote speakers and four workshops on the following topics:
Health Literacy Interventions in Health Systems
- Moderated by Rima Rudd, ScD, Senior Lecturer on Society, Human & Health Development at Harvard School of Public Health and Elyse Barbell Rudolph, Executive Director of Literacy Assistance Center in New York

System Redesign to Provide Health Literacy Sensitive Primary Care
- Moderated by Darren DeWalt, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Medicine at University of North Carolina and Robb Malone, PharmD, CDE, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy at University of North Carolina

The Impact of Health Literacy on Health Care Quality
- Moderated by Bernard M. Rosof, MD, MACP, Chairman, Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement and George J. Isham, MD, MS, Medical Director and Chief Health Officer of HealthPartners, Inc.

Medication Label Improvement: An Issue at the Intersection of Health Literacy and Patient Safet- Moderated by Ruth M. Parker, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and William H. Shrank, MD, MSHS, Instructor, Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital

To view a preliminary agenda and to register, click here (http://foundation.acponline.org/hl/hcc2008.htm).