By Elys Viera, Dayan Colón, Yadira Alonso, Joey Armas
The Hispanic population in the United States has increased significantly in the past decade. According to U.S. Census data, 19.9% of Philadelphia’s 1.5 million residents speak a language other than English at home; of those, 9.3% are Latino/Hispanics.1 This correlates with the growth of Latino patients seen at Temple University Health System. In 2002, an estimated 20% of health system admissions were Hispanic patients with limited English proficiency (LEP).2 The number of LEP registrations in 2009 at our health system including other languages was 143,297. At the beginning of this century, communication already was a clinical challenge to providing excellent quality of care and presented potential legal liability. … Read More