The Cost Of Language Line: A Case Study

“No Habla English”. “21 million people living in the United States cannot speak English. Citizens are not just speaking Spanish, but Chinese and Russian are rising fast.” (U.S. Bureau of Census, 2009) To force a citizen to speak a new language is discrimination. Non-English speaking citizens and immigrants that are without good English skills will fall academically, in the judicial system and when receiving proper medical care.

According to the 2011 U.S. Census, twenty-one percent of the population speaks other language at home besides English. Hence, one of the biggest challenges in Healthcare is the language barrier between the providers, Health care administrators and patients that speak foreign languages. This poses a challenge for medical entities,

In the state of Massachusetts the state law states that the emergency department patients with limited English proficiency have the right to a medical interpreter (Ginde, Clark, & Camargo, 2009). Having a medical interpreter for patients that have limited English proficiency will increase the quality of health care they receive; it also increases patient compliance and increases patient satisfaction. The use of professional interpreters is shown to decrease revisiting the emergency department, and increase this population’s use of outpatient clinics for follow up care (Ginde et al., 2009).

For example; If a patient does not speak the language of which country they are in, interpreters or translators may be needed in order to help communicate with people from the local area. These are important to keep the person informed about what is happening and what is going to happen. Supporting individuals to express their needs and

Language is one social and cultural barriers that may have made it difficult for the doctors to communicate with Jessica’s family. It creates the trust that exists between a patient and a doctor and their guardians. When using a translator, meanings may change and the desired communication result may not be achieved. The trust that should exist between the doctor and the patient and the guardians

Lor et al. (2016) examined the growing problem of language barriers for patients in the United States and around the world. The use of interpreters is often the solution to bridge the gap between languages. The purpose of this study was to examine patient perception of interpreter services.The population for this study included 10 English proficient Hmong patients and 10 Spanish speaking patients. The participants ranged from age 33 to 75 years old. The intervention was that poor quality interpretation could lead to poor relationships among patients, interpreters and providers. In addition poor interpretation could end up in the patient being unable to follow through with treatment plans. Lastly, poor quality interpretation can lead to emotional distress for patients. Comparison was that patients have expectations on how the

In response to reading this book, I will be utilizing more the services of professional interpreters during the physical therapy session with the patient rather than using ad hoc interpreters such as family, friends, hospital clerks and housekeepers. Professional interpreters improve the quality of clinical care for LEPs to level that for those patients without barriers in language (Gray & Hardt, 2017). Meanwhile, ad hoc interpreters might be bilingual but they have no medical training (Gray & Hardt, 2017).

We asked the following group the following five questions in which they all answer and we followed by a group discussion to improve our approach to offering our patients an interpreter service via phone/Marti or live interpreter. We focused on both positive and negative aspect on how we can achieve 100% compliance.

Their goal is to improve the effective communication with the people from different culture. They require all the healthcare provider to get fully trained either online or onsite on the communication skill and they inspect and discuss the role on better communication during the field visit.

Consequently, the need for qualified interpreters in the clinical settings is of great essence in the reduction of

Jacobs, E. A., Shepard, D. S., Suaya, J. A., Stone, E. (2004). Overcoming language barriers in health care: costs and benefits of interpreter services. American Journal of Public Health, 94 (5), 866-869.

Insuring that the patient fully understands what is being done to them is of great importance. As patients, they have the right to understand what is being done and why. Informed consent must be given; the patient should be able to repeat what they have been informed of before the procedure is done. Currently “only 33 percent of U.S. hospitals have quality improvement efforts underway to improve the quality of their language access programs.” (Armand and Hubbard, 2010). The goal of the interpreter is to assure that the LEP patient has no doubts or concerns and totally understands what is going to happen, why, and any options they may have.

Medical interpreting is more complex compared to the other interpreting area. “The interpreter may interpret for life-changing events including birth, the diagnosis of serious illnesses, and end-of-life care. In this highly personal setting, emotions can be charged; time can be of the essence; and patients may be experiencing pain, anxiety, or grief” (Gertz, 504); time is essence when interpreting for patients in emergency care. Interpreters would have to be fast and be able to interpret accurately in order to give correct informations to doctors, nurse, etc. Qualifications for medical Deaf interpreters

Collaboration: The AHSC provides various opportunities to its clients for helping them in getting more connections with the local community, such as translating letters for them, scheduling medical appointments for them, and providing interpreters for them while their are having medical appointments. Since all of its clients are not able to speak English, it’s great to provide them these kinds of service in order to help them to overcome the language barriers. Listening to its clients’ needs is extremely important, because this would be the first step to help these clients, and the AHSC’s staffs and their clients need to build trust between each other because is one of the most fundamental keys to collaborate.

During the study, Davidson said that the scarcity of time become the factor of the patient in medical interview. It is because the patients who used interpreter often were left alone for sometimes an hour while they waited for the interpreter to arrive (Baker, 2010 p.160). Moreover, Davidson said that the interpreters are possibly conducted the interview with the patient before the physician arrived (Baker, 2010 p.160). They took a charge of physician’s position by asking questions the patient about the illness before they convey it to the physician. This affects the process of elaborating a Chief Complaint from patient which becomes shorter. Besides, the interpreters also would occasionally go so far as to conduct the initial portions of the interviews itself. According to Davidson in Baker (2010, p.164) the interferences of interpreter in medical interview create harms for the physician. For instance, in