Key Piece to Achieving Health Equity
By Erica Baruch, Erica Baruch Consulting
Imagine arriving at an emergency room with a medical issue and the only person in your family who can communicate with the hospital staff is your eight-year-old son. He is overwhelmed with questions and becoming more and more upset with each passing moment. Now imagine the same hospital seven years later with a full-time on-site interpreter able to guide you through the treatment of a critical condition with no lapse in communication. This type of change can and does occur and it can make the world of difference to millions of patients.
Accessible and meaningful language services for individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) can dramatically improve access to health care and understanding of a patient’s health status, diagnosis or treatment instructions. Additionally, language services can decrease frustration on the part of medical personnel, enhance their ability to provide quality care and increase the efficiency of health care organizations.
Over 800,000 Coloradans, or nearly two in 10 individuals, speak a language other than English in their home, a number that grew by one-third between 2000 and 2010. The number with limited English proficiency (defined as speaking English less than “very well”) grew by nearly one-fourth (2010 U.S. Census). These changes create a challenge that policymakers and health care providers will have to address in order for all Coloradans to be served equitably.
A new report from The Colorado Trust, Health Equity and Language Access: How Language Access Issues Affect Patients, Policymakers and Health Care Providers, examines the importance of language in accessing health care, provides policymakers with an overview of existing legal requirements and additional policy opportunities and offers health care providers approaches to improve language services.
The report highlights several organizations that have made strides in improving language services, each using a unique approach tailored to their context, needs and resources. One organization, Summit Community Care Clinic in Frisco, gave extra weight to a candidate’s fluency in a language other than English when hiring staff and now most of their staff is bilingual.
The report also offers ways to avoid common pitfalls, standardize quality of care and help health service organizations assess current efforts and build language programs over a period of time.
While health service organizations and policymakers face challenges in meeting the linguistic needs of Colorado’s population, this report shows that even organizations with limited resources can make significant advances. Read the highlights or full report to learn more about how planning and a commitment to improving language access can guide organizations and policymakers on a path toward high-quality services for all.
