By Heike Thiel de Bocanegra, Daria Rostovtseva, Mine Cetinkaya, Colin Rundel
In 2008, nearly 9% of U.S. residents and one in five Californians reported speaking English less than well.1 Patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) frequently receive health care services of suboptimal quality. Clinicians seeing LEP patients with the help of an interpreter (language-discordant or LD visits) tend to take a less comprehensive medical history and are more likely to order unnecessary medical tests than clinicians who speak the client’s native language (language-concordant or LC visits).2 Language-discordant patient-provider interactions are associated with more frequent and expensive testing,3 an increased likelihood of medical errors,4-6 decreased patient comprehension,7,8 lower … Read More