Often patients are dealing with a host of information from diagnosis to treatment decisions. Being involved in their plan of care, patients need to be able to have access to different health care services, find and assess information, understand test results, and how to calculate dosages. To carry out these actions requires a patient to be literate in terms of (1) visually (understand visual information), (2) computer (operating a computer or electronic device), (3) facts (determining relevance of information), and (4) mathematically (calculations/numerical assessment) (Osborn et al., …show more content…
The amount of information being shared and retrieved increases a potential breach in provider/ patient confidentiality. There is a growing concern that the accessibility of information is being too dependent of electronic means. Thought time saving, and generally less cost effective, it is a frontier in the health care world which is still in its growing stages as technology advances and information is modified. On the basic level, a patient needs to be able to understand how the health care system works, the different types of care, and ways to navigate and communicate appropriately with providers, as well as, have an understanding of their own mental and physical