This guidance and the Interactive Learning Module help you lead a reliable sustainable teach-back initiative.
Getting Started
- Guidance for getting started and engaging stakeholders for a successful teach-back initiative. Click here to download.
- Having a senior sponsor’s or leader ‘s support helps spread the importance of your teach-back initiative to others and to address barriers and accelerate progress and success. Click here to download.
- Guidance for developing effective, reliable, and sustainable teach-back processes. Click here to download.
- Guidance to help engage stakeholders (staff and users of care and services) to help understand what is important to and what gets in the way of adding teach-back to daily work. Click here to download.
- Collecting your team’s ideas on what to work on and where to start is a powerful way to engage and learn from their experience and expertise. Click here to download.
- An example and template for recording ideas from your team about what to work on and where to start. Click here to download.
- Making the best changes requires input from stakeholders and prioritization. Click here to download.
- A worksheet for helping you plan for starting to use teach-back. Click here to download.
- Suggestions for establishing measures to achieve effective, reliable, and sustainable use of teach-back. Click here to download.
Consider Your Focus
Which group will start using teach-back?
- Examples of taking responsibility, teach-back topics, and non-shaming open-ended questions for various health team members and settings. Click here to download.
- A cardiology team shares role-specific examples for using teach-back and non-shaming open-ended questions. Click here to download.
- A Canadian neurovascular team shares role-specific examples for using teach-back and non-shaming open-ended questions. Click here to download.
- These videos depict a variety of health team members using the 10 Elements of Teach-back in various settings. Click here to download.
- Everyone in the health service or care continuum can further support patients, families, and clients in subsequent care delivery, plans, and settings when staff know how well people are able to teach back. Click here to download.
What will they be using teach-back for?
- Examples of how teach-back can be used in high-risk clinical and non-clinical situations when extra assurance that people fully understand is needed. Click here to download.
- Clinicians who prescribe, counsel, or provide support should use teach-back to help people understand and use their medicines. Click here to download.
- Use teach-back with transitions between providers or settings of care or services when people are at increased risk for harm. Click here to download.
- To help individuals improve their own health literacy, identify opportunities to share tips, tools, and approaches to get the most out of their health interactions. Partner with colleagues and patient advisory or advocacy groups to share ways to help people initiate teach-back if health team members do not do so. To learn more click here to download.
Why is using teach-back important here?
- Teach-back helps health organizations and every member of the health team to advance health equity, safety, quality, and patient- and client-centered care and services, and improve outcomes. Click here to download.
- Healthy People 2030's framework includes health literacy among its Overarching Goals and Foundational Principles.
- Conveying respect and being aware of and addressing cultural and language differences are vital when using teach-back. Click here to download.
- Examples of taking responsibility, teach-back topics, and non-shaming open-ended questions for various health team members and settings to help reveal what patients and family caregivers may not fully understand. Click here to download.
Videos
Health and Dental Team Members Using Teach-back in Various Health and Dental Settings
Pediatrician using teach-back and show-back with patient and parent with a new asthma inhaler – English (1:35)
Internal Medicine physician using teach-back and show-back with Spanish-speaking patient and interpreter for asthma inhaler – Spanish (2:22)
Dentist using teach-back for HPV vaccine (:18)
Pharmacist using teach-back with a family member picking up a prescription for her grandfather (1:38)
Physical therapist using teach-back for patient exercises at a home health visit (1:41)
Clinical social worker using teach-back with grandparent about her granddaughter’s diabetes care services during a telemedicine visit (1:05)
Community health worker using teach-back while explaining COVID vaccination (1:32)
Teach-back Interactive Learning Module
This Module helps learners identify and use key elements of teach-back and plain language to promote health equity, safety, and quality, and advance organizational health literacy.
Learn more about the essentials of teach-back, and who, where, when, and how to use it.
Starting a Teach-back Initiative Engaging Senior Leaders or Sponsors Aims, Goals, and Objectives - Clinical and Non-clinical Examples Asking What Matters to You Collecting Your Team’s Ideas for Creating Change Collecting Ideas Example and Template Prioritizing Ideas for Change: The Decision Matrix - slides with how-to and examples My Plan to Start Using Teach-back – fillable sheet Communication Planning Measures for Reliable, Sustainable Teach-back Using Teach-back in Practice for Different Professions or Settings: Lead-ins and Questions to Assist with Understanding Role-specific Teach-back and Open-ended Question Examples: Cardiology Role-specific Teach-back and Open-ended Question Examples: Neurovascular Multiple Providers and Patients Demonstrate Teach-back for Different Roles or Settings Documentation and Interprofessional Collaboration Teach-back in High-risk Health Situations Using Teach-back with Medicines Using Teach-back with Transitions in Care or Services Help People Learn to Initiate Teach-back from Health Team Members Why Use Teach-back Healthy People 2030 Culture and Respect Using Teach-back in Practice for Different Professions or Settings: Lead-ins and Questions to Assist with Understanding