• Patient Teaching into Practice
    • Patient Education
      • The nurse’s role in patient education
      • Patient / family education standards
      • The growing need for patient teaching
      • Interdisciplinary collaboration, patient education
      • Patient Education – What does the future hold?
    • Theoretical Basis of Patient Education
      • The Theoretical Basis of Patient Education – Introduction
      • The Health Belief Model
      • Patient Education: Self-efficacy
      • Related theories of Patient Education
      • Characteristics of adult learners
      • Behavioral, cognitive, humanist approaches
      • Patient Education: Learning readiness
    • The Process of Patient Education
      • Process of Patient Education: Introduction
      • Assessing learning needs
      • Developing learning objectives
      • Planning and implementing teaching
      • Evaluating teaching and learning
      • Developing an effective teaching style
      • Using adult learning principles
    • The Family and Patient Education
      • Family structure and style
      • Impact of illness on the family
      • Doing a family assessment
      • Strategies for teaching family members
      • Expanding needs of family caregivers
      • Developing a partnership with the family
    • Providing Age-Appropriate Patient Education
      • Providing Age-Appropriate Patient Education: Introduction
      • Teaching parents of infants
      • Teaching toddlers
      • Teaching pre-school children
      • Teaching school age children
      • Teaching adolescents
      • Teaching young adults
      • Teaching adults in midlife
      • Teaching older adults
    • Impact of Culture on Patient Education
      • Impact of Culture on Patient Education: Introduction
      • How culture influences health beliefs
      • Doing a cultural assessment
      • Cultural negotiation
      • Using interpreters in health care
      • Non-English speaking patients
      • A model of care for cultural competence
    • Adherence in Patient Education
      • Adherence in Patient Education: Introduction
      • Impact on treatment recommendations
      • Causes of non-adherence
      • The patient as a passive recipient of care
      • Effect of interpersonal skills on adherence
      • Interventions that can increase adherence
    • Helping Patients Who Have Low Literacy Skills
      • Helping Patients Who Have Low Literacy Skills: Introduction
      • Designing low literacy materials
    • Resources for Patient Education
      • Resources for Patient Education: Introduction
      • Selected Patient Education Resources

EuroMed Info

Gesundheit und Vorsorge im Überblick

Using interpreters in health care

Language is the foundation for effective nurse-patient relationships and is important for interpersonal and cross-cultural communication. Being able to communicate with a patient is vital for obtaining an accurate and comprehensive patient and family assessment, formulating and implementing a treatment plan, determining the effectiveness of nursing care, and evaluating outcomes of care.As result of dramatic demographic changes in the United States, nurses are increasingly faced with the challenge of communicating with the patient who cannot speak English or speaks English with limited proficiency.

People who speak English with limited proficiency are a significant percentage of the U.S. population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 14 percent of the population speak a language other than English at home. This percentage is greater than 40 percent in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Honolulu, and El Paso, Texas. Of all non-English speakers in the United States, 17.3 million (54 percent) speak Spanish at home, and 8.3 million Hispanics report that they speak English less than „very well.“ People who speak Chinese rank second among people who speak English less than „very well.“

The vast majority of health care and human service institutions receive federal financial assistance such as Medicare, Medicaid, or Hill-Burton funds and thus are subject to Title VI mandates, requiring policies that do not limit access of limited English proficiency persons (LEP) to health care services. The Department of Health and Human Services requires that reasonable steps be taken to provide services and information in languages other than English to ensure that LEP patients are informed and can effectively participate and benefit from health care. The JCAHO requires that health care institutions make translation services available. Demographic changes; federal, state, and local laws; accreditation standards for health care organizations, and the potential for legal liability are all important reasons for nurses to incorporate in their practice appropriate strategies for communicating with LEP patients.

There are important differences between a translator and an interpreter. A translator is a person who can speak English and the patient’s native language. However, the translator often does not have equal fluency in both languages and may lose important cultural nuances and meanings. In contrast, an interpreter is a professionally trained person who interprets the meaning of words and phrases from the health care provider’s language to the patient’s language and provides the same services on behalf of the patient to the health care provider.

Non-English speaking patients

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  • Gesundheit
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Patient Teaching

  • Patient Education
  • Theoretical Basis of Patient Education
  • The Process of Patient Education
  • The Family and Patient Education
  • Providing Age-Appropriate Patient Education
  • Impact of Culture on Patient Education
  • Adherence in Patient Education
  • Helping Patients Who Have Low Literacy Skills
  • Resources for Patient Education

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Recommendable link

Journal of Public Health: The Need of Patient Education