The healing power of language: caring for patients with limited english proficiency and COVID-19.
The healing power of language: caring for patients with limited english proficiency and COVID-19.
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DOI:
10.1038/s41390-021-01487-6
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发表时间:
2022-03
影响因子:
3.6
通讯作者:
Matute JD
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Herzberg EM;Barrero-Castillero A;Matute JD
Over the last 40 years, the number of individuals at least 5 years old in the US who speak a language other than English at home has increased from 11%(23 million) in the 1980s to 21.5%(71 million) in 2018. 1 Of those 71 million, almost 40%(25.7 million,~ 8.5% of the US population) have “Limited English Proficiency”(LEP), 1 defined as a self-rated English-speaking ability of “less than very well.” 2 Patients with LEP face numerous healthcare inequities and poorer health outcomes, as LEP adversely impacts multiple aspects of healthcare including access and utilization, patient–physician communication and trust, satisfaction, quality and safety, and duration of hospitalization. 3, 4 The majority of individuals in the US with LEP speak Spanish (66%), and the Latinx population continues to grow. There are now more people who speak Spanish at home in the US than in any country in Latin America, with the exception of Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina. 5 Despite this, only 5.8% of US physicians identify as Latinx, 6 creating a major challenge for representation in healthcare. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations mandate that institutions that receive federal financial assistance from HHS provide language services to individuals with LEP where required. 7 In recent years, healthcare institutions have made significant efforts to ensure the provision of language services for patients with LEP, utilizing strategies including identification and documentation of patient preferred language in the medical record and harnessing technology to increase the availability of interpreters. 8, 9 However, many healthcare systems continue to struggle to provide appropriate language services, 10–13 and the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified significant challenges in providing equitable healthcare to patients with LEP. In our own institution, during the initial COVID-19 surge, existing interpreter services were unable to meet the in-person language needs of the overwhelming number of patients with LEP, in particular Spanishspeaking patients, and the use of telephone language services proved challenging in full personal protective equipment. 14 These challenges created an opportunity for us, as Spanish-speaking neonatologists, who normally care for newborns, to care for Spanish-speaking adult patients with LEP. At the height of the pandemic in Boston during spring 2020, approximately 60% of the inpatients at Massachusetts General Hospital had LEP, and around 40% of the inpatients were Spanishspeaking with LEP. This was a significant increase given, at baseline, 9% of our inpatients have LEP and 6% of our inpatients are Spanish-speaking with LEP. 14 As Qualified Bilingual Staff (QBS), alongside 51 other Spanish-speaking clinicians from 14 countries and 13 specialties, we were part of the new Spanish Language Care Group (SLCG). 14 The SLCG was an initiative developed to provide compassionate and culturally competent care for Spanishspeaking patients with LEP and COVID-19 in the setting of a shortage of in-person interpreters, rationing of personal protective equipment, and increased demand during the initial COVID-19 surge. We evaluated patients in Spanish as part of the COVID-19 surge teams and assisted with conversations about prognosis, decision-making, symptom management, goals of care, and discharge planning. Putting aside our usual medical arsenal, we stepped into a new role as healers, armed with the power of language.We assisted with the care of a new mother in the ICU who had recently extubated. A few days earlier, she had required an emergency cesarean delivery due to …
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DOI:
10.15585/mmwr.mm6942e1
发表时间:
2020-10-23
期刊:
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影响因子:
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发表时间:
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发表时间:
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TELEMEDICINE JOURNAL AND E-HEALTH
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影响因子:
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