Health Literacy Internship Available

Internship Information:  The intern will help complete a two-year project entitled “Adopting a Patient-Centered Prescription Medication Label in Wisconsin.”  This project is funded by the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program through the Medical College of Wisconsin.  The goal is to encourage adoption of easier-to-understand prescription medication labels, which ultimately will reduce medication errors, improve medication use, and reduce unnecessary hospital and clinic visits and health care costs due to confusion on how and when to take a medication.

Studies show that nearly half of adults taking medications misunderstand one or more dosage instructions. This is especially problematic for those with low health literacy. Factors such as confusing label language and layout have been shown to cause medication misuse and patient errors, leading to increased hospital and emergency room visits, health decline and even death. The United States Pharmacopeia in 2013 approved a new set of patient-centered label standards. Since January 2016, WHL has been working with three area pharmacies—UW Health, Hayat and Hometown—and their 65 sites to implement new labels based on the standards. This phase of the project ends in December 2017.

The responsibilities of the intern will depend on his/her skills and background. Tasks may include work with partner pharmacies implementing new labels, ongoing communication about the project with stakeholders, analyzing public health data to prioritize areas in the state for new label implementation, data entry from patient satisfaction surveys and work on articles documenting this project’s results. He/she may also be involved in other health literacy projects of Wisconsin Health Literacy.

Qualifications: Successful intern candidates should have a background or education in public health, pharmacy, nursing, medicine or other health-related profession.

Work Requirements, Stipend: The intern will work 10 hours/week during the fall 2017 semester.  A stipend payable monthly is $2,000 per semester ($12.50/hour). 

To apply, please send resume by August 25 to: Steve Sparks, MS, Health Literacy Director,
steve@wisconsinliteracy.org.

For downloadable copy, please click here.