Greetings:
Hablamos Juntos is pleased to announce the first in a series of brief reports on issues of interest to language services professionals and clinicians nationwide.
As a regular subscriber to eUpdates from Hablamos Juntos, you’ll be notified as each report is posted to our website at www.hablamosjuntos.org.
The first report in our new bi-monthly series, Affordable Language Services: Implications for Health Care Organizations, explains the implications for quality and patient safety created by language barriers.
How do language barriers affect patient safety and quality of care? What major challenges must organizations overcome to address language barriers between patients and care providers? How can institutions make sure that patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) receive the right care?
This report provides insight and perspectives on these and other questions. Specifically, the report explores:
- Why effective communication is essential for good care;
- How Hablamos Juntos is developing new strategies to overcome language barriers;
- What hospitals and other health care institutions can accomplish by working together;
- Why it will take more than money and additional staff to address language barriers in providing quality health care.
This report is the first in a new library of products, which share the lessons learned by scores of bilingual interpreters and translation experts and offer hospitals and other health care organizations the information and resources they need to provide quality care.
Future products from Hablamos Juntos will focus on how institutions can develop non-English written materials that facilitate effective health care encounters, how institutions can systematically assess the impact of translated materials and more.
Thank you for your continuing interest in the work of Hablamos Juntos and our common effort to provide the best possible care to all patients, regardless of their preferred language.
Yolanda Partida, MSW, DPA
Director National Program Office
Hablamos Juntos II – Languag Policy & Practice in Health Care
UCSF Fresno, Center for Medical & Education Research
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