Inadequate Communication

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Recommended: Use of communication in healthcare

With 47 million people in the United States unable to speak English and 21 million people with limited English proficiency (LEP), the issue of inadequate communication has become a considerable problem for healthcare providers (U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration, 2003). This does not account for the thousands of Americans who have hearing loss and use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary form of interaction (Mitchell, Young, Bachleda, & Karchmer, 2006). “Communication with patients is essential to providing quality medical care” (Bernard et al., 2006, p. 355). All patients deserve quality healthcare and these populations are no exception.

Patients with LEP frequently delay initial medical care, avoid follow-up, and are often noncompliant with treatment recommendations (Flores et al., 2003). This can cause deleterious consequences for the LEP population, including misdiagnosis and medical errors. Poor communication can ultimately lead to an increase in litigation for medical providers (Diamond & Jacobs, 2010). The LEP population is in need of quality medical care, since many of these patients are not in the best health (Flores et al., 2003). Yet, most patients are still not provided with a translator (Flores, 2006). Some of the reasons healthcare providers choose not to use translators include limited access, as well as cost and effectiveness of the service (Gadon, Balch, & Jacobs, 2007). In some cases, physicians chose to use their limited knowledge of the language to translate or did not recognize an interpreter was warranted. Flores e...

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...ek and eighty percent being seen frequently (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010).

Providing patients with translation support needs to be paramount in order for this volume of patients to receive quality care. Measures need to be taken to ensure that all patients with communication barriers are assisted when seeking medical services. The number of individuals nationally requiring language assistance is growing and depending on the diversity of the population, language support may be required for just a few or numerous languages (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). The value of using interpreter services outweighs the barriers, but how to best achieve this may be a challenge (Ku & Flores, 2005). Interpreter services are not only mandated, but also essential for quality outcomes to occur.

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