Communication errors are the most frequent root cause of serious patient safety events. These can be avoided by using qualified interpreters and establishing systematic approaches to reporting and monitoring errors.
The Limited-English-Proficient (LEP) community in the United States accounts for nearly 25 million people, 8.6% of the nation’s population.
Failure to address language and cultural factors with this community and their LEP patients has significant implications on quality, patient safety, and hospital costs.
According to The Joint Commission, communication problems are the most frequent cause of serious patient safety events for LEP populations in healthcare.
In 2011, the organization published the Patient-Centered Communication Standards, emphasizing the necessity of effective communication, cultural competence, and patient-centered care as critical elements for safe quality and care.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has described activities and strategies that can help healthcare leaders start addressing to improve communication and understanding between LEP patients and their caregivers by reducing high-error risks and inequities to improve communication in healthcare organizations and the service provided to LEP and culturally diverse patients.
Here are 5 things healthcare organizations can do to improve patient safety for LEP patients:
- Identify errors. Engage in a systematic approach to better identify and prevent common medical errors and adverse events among LEP patients. Fostering a supportive culture for the safety of diverse patient populations and improving reporting of medical errors for LEP patients can allow your organization to address the root causes of errors.
- Keep looking and creating quarterly or yearly safety reports or dashboards focusing on LEP patient safety to understand high-risk scenarios better.
- Training is vital. Provide staff with training and systems to develop strategies to report medical errors for LEPs effectively and efficiently. Training staff to work with interpreters in every encounter with LEP patients significantly reduces the risk of medical errors.
- Sharing is caring. Share lessons learned from patient safety with all staff to help build an institutional culture sensitive to issues that affect LEP patients and ensure ongoing learning and training in your area.
- Listen to them. Involve patients in Family Advisory Councils, Cultural Advisory Councils, or Cultural Advisory Groups to incorporate patient perspectives. Understanding your LEP communities’ needs is key to improving quality services.
In conclusion, following up on these recommendations is a great way to reduce the following:
- Medical errors
- Increase patient safety
- Lower liability exposures.
If you want to eliminate these errors, training your staff on cultural differences and how to work with qualified medical & LEP interpreters is the primary key to addressing language and cultural factors in caring for patients with Limited English Proficiency issues and needs.
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