Improving Language Services
Asking patients their race, ethnicity, and language preferences can feel awkward for busy hospital registration staff, but Cincinnati-area hospitals have found that asking these questions reveals important information that can help them to more effectively identify and address potential disparities in the care they deliver.
Today more than one-third of Americans are racial or ethnic minorities, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the proportion will increase to more than half of the U.S. population by 2043. This shift in national demographics will have a tremendous impact...
As part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s signature effort to improve the quality of health care 150 hospital teams participated in prestigious national program over the last 18 months.
Ninety percent of the hospital teams participating in this AF4Q hospital quality improvement collaborative improved the quality of care for their patients in measurable ways, resulting in hundreds of avoided readmissions; improved patient safety; standardized data collection on patients’ race, ethnicity and language preference (R/E/L), a critical part of tracking and meeting...
To increase physician usew and documentation of interpreter services, St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison, WI, added a physician Best Practice Alert into Epic, the electronic medical record system the hospital uses, to highlight the need for an interpreter, inform physicians of how to access an interpreter, and inform physicians of a newly created space in Epic that allows them to document interpreter services easily. The Best Practice Alert is automatically triggered at registration for any patient who states a preference for receiving health care in a language other than English....
HQN - Improving Language Services:
Communication in a language patients can understand is fundamental for receiving and providing safe, high-quality health care. Research shows that the likely result of using untrained interpreters is an increase in medical errors, poorer patient-provider communication, and poorer follow-up and adherence to discharge instructions. Although hospitals are required to provide interpreter services to patients who speak limited English, there is little guidance on the best ways to implement these requirements.
- In this initiative, 1.5 million patients were screened for preferred spoken language, more than half a million screened for preferred written language, and more than 4,500 patients had qualified interpreters at both initial assessment and discharge.
- By the end of the collaborative, 100 percent of the hospital teams in Improving Language Services had successfully standardized their registration systems to collect self-reported race, ethnicity, and language data.
Learn more about AF4Q's hospital quality initiatives or to view the final data, click here.
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For 18 months, nearly 150 hospital teams participated in a prestigious national program to improve the quality and safety of patient care in hospitals. The effort is part of Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s signature effort to improve the quality of health care in 16 targeted communities across the country, reduce disparities, and provide models of reform.
Ninety percent of the hospital teams participating in this AF4Q hospital quality improvement collaborative improved the quality of care for their patients in measurable ways, resulting in hundreds of avoided readmissions; improved patient safety; standardized data collection on patients’ race, ethnicity and language preference (R/E/L), a critical part of tracking and meeting diverse patient needs; and improved emergency department (ED) care.
Hospitals participating in the effort were part of a virtual network where they developed, shared, and implemented quality improvement tools, strategies, and lessons learned. The project was funded by RWJF and supported by experts at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.