Creating a Survey to Assess Interpreter Utilization at Rhode Island Hospital

1
Creating a Survey to Assess Interpreter
Utilization at Rhode Island Hospital

• October 8th, 2008
•  
• Ben Brown
• Alpert Medical School, MD 2012
• nriAHEC Grantee, 2008

2
Goals

•  Short-term
• Assess clinician attitudes (MD, RN, SW, etc.)
  toward utilization of interpreters for limited
  English proficiency (LEP) patients.
• Identify bilingual clinicians to build a database
  of providers with foreign language skills (as
  required by RI law).
•  
• Long-term
• Develop an ongoing series of targeted workshops
  to train clinicians in the ethical and logistical
  issues involved in treating LEP patients and to
  increase utilization of professional
  interpreters.
• Assess the language skills of self-identified
  bilingual clinicians and develop a network of
  such practitioners to act as resources for
  colleagues and for LEP patients.

3
Why undertake this study?

• Demographics
• 46 million Americans do not speak English as a
  first language.
• 21 million do not speak enough English to
  navigate a monolingual setting such as a
  hospital.
•  Ethical issues
• Interpreters facilitate higher quality
  communication.
• Professional interpreters help avoid ethical
  pitfalls (esp. confidentiality).
• Utilization a problem
• In spite of strong reasons to do so, studies
  suggest that clinicians often do not utilize
  professional interpreters.
• We need to know why so we can fix what's not
  working.

4
Process

• Develop a comprehensive survey
• Obtain administrative approval
• Pilot the survey
• Pilot post-survey analysis and interventions
  (workshop for clinicians, database of bilingual
  practitioners)
• Broader implementation of survey and
  interventions
• Follow-up publications and development of new
  initiatives based on these experiences (the cycle
  continues...)

5
Findings / Results

• Still in the early stages awaiting
  administrative approval
• Survey instrument has been created which will
  provide us with a range of useful information,
  much of which will be particularly helpful in
  targeting future interventions.
• The questionnaire is also flexible enough that
  other institutions may apply it to their
  particular situations.

6
Conclusion

•  
•  
•  
•  
• This project is ambitious but necessary in order
  to provide better health care to all Rhode
  Islanders. We look forward to continuing to work
  on this intervention and to all the new doors it
  will open for the patients of Rhode Island
  Hospital.