Health Care Problem Analysis Paper

This paper will provide a brief overview of the problem analyzed and study methods used to resolve the problem. The problem analyzed in this article is whether clinical care would improve if a patient with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) is a provided someone who could interpret for them in a medical setting. The article segments the interpreters into 3 groups: untrained/ad hoc interpreters, professional interpreters only, and professional and ad hoc/untrained interpreter combined. The professional interpreters varied on training time from on-the-job to formal 40-hour training in medical terminology and skills specific to performing interpretation in a medical setting. The ad hoc interpreters could be anyone from a bilingual family member

to any healthcare employee, or anyone stating to be bilingual.
There are four clinical care topics that are analyzed to be the most impactful in disparities for health care in LEP patients: communication errors, utilization of clinical care, clinical outcomes, and patient satisfaction.

Equally important, 71 percent of the studies were conducted in the United States, while the rest of the studies were conducted in other countries where English is the official language. In brief, the studies did show that the use of interpreters did reduce disparities and improve clinical care, but lacks a formal costs analysis.

I agree with the articles findings that interpreters positively impact clinical care. This article was written before the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Health care organizations or private-practice physicians did not need to worry so much about the clinical care topics mentioned above. At this time, the implementation of the ACA should ameliorate the clinical care topics. Furthermore, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) will hold reimbursements from hospitals based on quality/clinical care

outcomes.
On the other hand, I do not agree on cost-to-benefit. The failure to provide quality interpretation to a LEP patient in a medical setting can have negative consequences for health care providers, as well, including: malpractice lawsuits or increased cost of care. In fact, the federal Office of Management and Budget estimated that it would cost the U.S. $268 million a year to provide interpretation services in hospitals, outpatient physician offices, dental offices, and emergency departments. This cost of interpreter services has been estimated to represent approximately .5 percent of the total cost to visit, but this small cost can have a profound impact on the patient’s access to care.
Thus, my interpretation of the root cause of the problem is that the U.S.

healthcare system has failed to evolve with its patient population. Even though Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 was created, which guarantees a patient’s right to interpretation and translation services in federally-funded activities and programs. Healthcare providers are often unclear about their legal obligations to provide language services. The unclear obligation to Title VI can be evidenced in patient non-compliance and adverse events.

The U.S. needs to focus on LEP because the Nation is becoming increasingly more diverse and the disparities will magnified in the future. In 2009, it was reported that approximately 57 million people, 20% of the U.S. population spoke another language other than English at home. What’s more approximately 25 million, 8.6 percent of the U.S. population, are defined as being LEP. Moreover, LEP does not only affect non-English speaking patients, but includes 59 percent of the elderly, which use the most health

services.
Overall, I have listed the reasons the U.S. healthcare system needs to adjust to the evolving demographics. One avenue to overcoming LEP is to go recruit and train linguistically capable college students interested in going into the medical field. This recruitment effort should provide students a valuable learning experience, and the healthcare provider gains a knowledge individual. At this time, I am not aware of any health professional school requiring a second language as part of the admission process. In requiring a second language in the professional healthcare admission processes the future provider maybe able to foster a patient-centered relationship with a diverse population.