User-driven Tool for Bilingual Clinical Dialogs and Medical Language Acquisition

描述（由申请人提供）：在获得医疗保健方面持续存在的差距阻碍了全国2600万英语水平有限（LEP）的个人获得高质量的医疗保健，从而无法实现最佳的健康结果。那些难以理解他们的护理提供者的患者报告说，他们在管理和临床程序中都遇到了困难，并且比那些精通英语的同行经历了更高的护理延迟率和更差的结果。尽管许多联邦和州级要求增加语言援助服务，但医疗保健组织在应对语言障碍带来的这些挑战方面取得的成功有限。该项目旨在带来急需的创新，以减轻沟通障碍和随之而来的健康差距。设想的解决方案将提供临床沟通支持和用户驱动的医学语言技能习得培训，可以在台式电脑、触摸屏平板电脑和移动设备上访问。由此产生的系统将利用医疗提供者社区来确定实际的诊所内沟通需求，这将推动与预期用户相关的目标学习材料的开发。医疗口译人员是一种非常宝贵但未得到充分利用的资源，将利用这一资源帮助提供者努力掌握第二语言能力，并通过对设想产品的简化连接方法提供按需现场口译服务。该系统将由LEP患者、一线医疗保健提供者和认证医疗口译员进行评估，以评估其改善医患沟通的能力，并在此过程中，为解决这些服务不足人群面临的健康差距做出有意义的贡献。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Persistent disparities in healthcare access hinder the nation's 26 million individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) from receiving quality care and, as a result, from achieving optimal health outcomes. Patients who struggle to understand their care providers report difficulty navigating both administrative and clinical procedures and experience significantly higher rates of delays in care delivery and poorer outcomes than their English-proficient counterparts. Despite numerous federal and state-level mandates for increased language assistance services, healthcare organizations have had limited success in tackling these challenges posed by the language barrier. This project aims to bring much-needed innovation to alleviate communication obstacles and accompanying health disparities. The envisioned solution will offer both in-clinic communication support and user-driven medical language skills acquisition training that can be accessed on desktop computers, touchscreen tablets, and mobile devices. The resultant system will leverage the medical provider community to identify actual in-clinic communication needs, which will drive the development of targeted learning materials that are relevant to the intended users. The medical interpreter community, a highly valuable but underutilized resource, will be leveraged to aid providers in their efforts to acquire second-language proficiency as well as provide on-demand live interpretations services through a streamlined method of connection on the envisioned product. The system will be evaluated by LEP patients, front-line healthcare providers, and certified medical interpreters to assess its ability to improve provider-patient communication and, in so doing, meaningfully contribute to addressing the health disparities facing these underserved populations.