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Language Access, Patient Safety, and Cultural Barriers Resources

´óÏóÊÓƵ (AHRQ), www.ahrq.gov

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• TeamSTEPPS is an evidence-based teamwork system aimed at optimizing patient outcomes by improving communication and teamwork skills among health care professionals.
  
  www.ahrq.gov/teamstepps/

Hospital Language Services: Quality Improvement and Performance Measures

• This paper describes the use of a multistage process to develop quality performance measures for Speaking Together participants. Early experiences with the measures highlight challenges with collecting information on patient care that has not previously been collected and the importance of engaging staff, including registration staff and senior management.
  
  www.ahrq.gov/downloads/pub/advances2/vol2/Advances-Regenstein_54.pdf

´óÏóÊÓƵHealth Care: Innovations Exchange

• The ´óÏóÊÓƵHealth Care Innovations Exchange offers busy health professionals and researchers a variety of opportunities to share, learn about, and ultimately adopt evidence-based innovations and tools suitable for a range of health care settings and populations.
  
  

American Medical Association,

Collecting and Using Race, Ethnicity, and Language Data in Ambulatory Settings

• This white paper provides practical recommendations on the collection and use of race, ethnicity, and language data as they pertain to the quality of care in ambulatory settings.
  
  

The Commonwealth Fund,

Promising Practices for Patient-Centered Communication With Vulnerable Populations: Examples From Eight Hospitals

• As patient populations become increasingly diverse, health care organizations are looking for innovative ways to communicate effectively across cultures, languages, and health literacy levels. This study identified eight hospitals from across the country that have demonstrated a commitment to providing patient-centered communication with vulnerable patient populations.
  
  

Diversity Rx,

• The purpose of DiversityRx is to improve the accessibility and quality of health care for minority, immigrant, and indigenous communities. We support those who develop and provide health services that are responsive to the cultural and linguistic differences presented by diverse populations.

Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET),

Disparities Toolkit

• This Web-based toolkit provides hospitals, health systems, clinics, and health plans with information and resources for systematically collecting race, ethnicity, and primary language data from patients.
  
  

Improving Health Equity Through Data Collection and Use: A Guide for Hospital Leaders

• This guide takes a deeper look at select hospitals and their use of patient race, ethnicity, and language data. Reflecting on their practices, the guide provides methods for hospital leaders to use these data effectively in care interventions.
  
  

Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA),

Culture, Language and Health Literacy

• Resources to help health care providers to recognize and address the unique culture, language and health literacy of diverse consumers and communities.
  
  

The Joint Commission,

Hospitals, Language, and Culture: A Snapshot of the Nation

• This is the first report released by the Hospitals, Language, and Culture study. It presents the challenges hospitals face when providing care and services to culturally and linguistically diverse populations and discusses the way hospitals are addressing those challenges.
   

What Did the Doctor Say?: Improving Health Literacy To Protect Patient Safety

• This public policy white paper frames the existing communication gap between patients and caregivers as a series of challenges involving literacy, language, and culture. It suggests multiple steps that need to be taken to narrow or close this gap.
  
  

Advancing Effective Communication, Cultural Competence, and Patient- and Family-Centered Care: A Roadmap for Hospitals

• This guide provides recommendations to help hospitals address unique patient needs, meet the new Patient-Centered Communication standards, and comply with existing Joint Commission requirements.
  
  

National Center for Cultural Competence (NCCC),

• NCCC's mission is to increase the capacity of health care and mental health care programs to design, implement, and evaluate culturally and linguistically competent service delivery systems to address growing diversity and persistent disparities. NCCC also promotes health and mental health equity.

The National Quality Forum (NQF),

A Comprehensive Framework and Preferred Practices for Measuring and Reporting Cultural Competency 

• This report outlines a comprehensive framework—a road map—for measuring and reporting cultural competency, endorsed by NQF in 2008. The report also details a set of 45 preferred practices for providing culturally competent care covering a range of issues, including communication, community engagement, and workforce training.
  
  

Safe Practices for Better Healthcare — 2010 Update

• The 2010 Update presents 34 practices that have been demonstrated to be effective in reducing the occurrence of adverse healthcare events. Additionally, the set can help healthcare providers assess the degree to which safe practices already have been implemented in their settings and the degree to which the practices provide tangible evidence of patient safety improvement and increased patient satisfaction and loyalty.
  
  

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,

National Health Plan Collaborative Toolkit

• The National Health Plan Collaborative has created this toolkit of resources, lessons, best practices, and case studies to help other health plans join the effort to reduce disparities. ´óÏóÊÓƵwas a cosponsor of the Collaborative.
  
  

Speaking Together Toolkit

• Ten hospitals with racially and ethnically diverse patient populations participated in RWJF's Speaking Together: National Language Services Network, a program aimed at improving the quality and availability of health care language services for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP).
  
  

 

Medical Interpreting Specific Resources

 

Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI),

• CCHI is the only certification body created by interpreters for interpreters and the public good. It will involve thousands of interpreters and users of interpreter services in defining their future and the credentials by which they will be known and respected.

California Healthcare Interpreting Association,

Standards of Practice (only standard that includes ethical decisionmaking)

• The goal of this document is to standardize health care interpreting practices by providing a set of ethical principles, interpreting protocols, and guidance on roles particular to the specialty of health care interpreting.
  
  

International Medical Interpreters Association,

Medical Interpreting Standards of Practice (only standard that includes an assessment tool at the end)

• The Medical Interpreting Standards of Practice document was the first set of standards to be developed in the field of spoken language interpreting in medical settings. It remains a vital evaluation and competency tool for professional interpreters all over the country, delineating core performance standards and competencies required of a competent interpreter.
  
  

A Medical Interpreter's Guide to Telephone Interpreting

• Medical interpreters often have questions about telephone interpreting but often do not have access to general information about this area of interpreting. In July 2007, IMIA offered to respond to questions from its membership about this topic. This query, along with subsequent discussions with organizational members with extensive experience in providing telephone interpreting services, resulted in the compilation of questions and answers in this document.
  
  

IMIA Guide on Medical Translation

• The objective of this document is to provide an easy-to-use set of translation management and quality control guidelines for those in the medical field.
  
  

National Interpreter Advocacy Forum

• The National Interpreter Advocacy Forum is a coalition of organizations and individuals that engage in effective advocacy for equitable treatment of language minority individuals.
  
  

Resources

National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters,

• The National Board aims to consolidate resources and avoid duplication in the field; coalesce existing efforts into a single national certification program; further the process and make certification available to the largest number of language in the largest number of locations; model a multiorganizational collaboration that recognizes certification efforts and other testing organizations' efforts without compromising their intellectual property; and have a comprehensive project to ensure national accreditation.

The National Council on Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC),

National Standards of Practice for Interpreters in Health Care

• These standards are intended to provide a common base of understanding of the profession, foster the consistency with which the profession is practiced, and improve the quality of interpreter services.
  
  

National Code of Ethics

• The National Code of Ethics standardizes expectations that the health care industry and patients should have of interpreters. The document places the code in the context of ethical behavior in general and then discusses each principle in the context of specific issues and dilemmas often faced by health care interpreters.
  
  

Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf,

RID Standard Practice Papers

• RID's Standard Practice Papers articulate the consensus of the membership in outlining standard practices and positions on various interpreting roles and issues.
  
  

Other Resources

California Health Care Safety Net Institute

Straight Talk: Model Hospital Policies and Procedures on Language Access

• The adoption of hospital policies and procedures is the essential mechanism to making a significant change in the operational actions of the U.S. hospital industry. It has been used throughout the history of this industry as a mechanism to change practice and establish expectations on a challenging issue. This document is designed to offer American hospitals a set of tools to use in updating their own internal policy and procedure manuals.
  
  

Institute for Diversity in Health Management's Institute Resource Center

• The Institute for Diversity in Health Management, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, works closely with health services organizations and educators to expand leadership opportunities for ethnic minorities in health services management.
  
  

Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care

Creating Advisory Councils

• This guide discusses the purposes of an advisory council and explains all the necessary items that one may need to develop an advisory council (including council composition, structure, etc.).
  
  

Kaiser Family Foundation

Disparities Policy

• This collection includes news updates, articles, and reports related to health and health care issues that affect underserved and racial and ethnic communities.
  
  

National Health Law Program

Language Access

• Content includes Language Access Publications, External Research and Studies, Federal Administrative Activities, Federal and State Legislation, and more.
  
  

Health Disparities

• Content includes Health Care as a Human Right; Collection of Race, Ethnicity, and Language Data; Working Group on Health Disparities and Health Reform; and more.
  
  

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights

• Guidance to Federal Financial Assistance Recipients Regarding Title VI and the Prohibition Against National Origin Discrimination Affecting Limited English Proficient Persons Summary
  
  

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health

A Patient-Centered Guide to Implementing Language Access Services in Healthcare Organizations

• The Office of Minority Health has sponsored the development of this guide to help health care organizations implement effective language access services to meet the needs of their LEP patients, thereby increasing their access to health care.
  
  

A Physician's Guide to Culturally Competent Care

• This Web site offers continuing medical education and continuing education credit and equips health care professionals with awareness, knowledge, and skills to better treat the increasingly diverse U.S. population they serve.