Providing Health Literate Virtual Health Services

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic increase in health services being conducted by telephone or video. While this change may have important benefits to patients, such as increasing access to care, it may also pose challenges for those with low health literacy. To explore these challenges, as well as opportunities for increasing access to care, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Roundtable on Health Literacy held a virtual public workshop on September 23, 2021. The workshop examined the experiences that individuals with low health literacy have with using virtual or telehealth services;best practices for ensuring that individuals with low health literacy are able to obtain, process, understand, and act upon health information and services provided virtually or through telehealth;and health system and provider strategies for ensuring the delivery of health literate virtual health services that benefit patients and practitioners alike. This Proceedings of a Workshop-in Brief highlights the presentations and discussions of the workshop.