JCAHO rules to address diversity, language, health literacy

The Joint Commission plans to revise hospital accreditation standards to include diversity, language and health literacy requirements for patient care processes. The commission won’t tell hospitals what technology to use but will lay out expectations and quality guidelines. For example, hospitals could train bilingual staff, hire an interpreter or purchase technology-based interpreter services.
http://www.jointcommission.org/PatientSafety/HLC/HLC_Develop_Culturally_Competent_Pt_Centered_Stds.htm

Sick around the world

Four in five Americans say the U.S. health care system needs fundamental change. Can the U.S. learn anything from the rest of the world about how to run a health care system, or are these nations so culturally different from us that their solutions would simply not be acceptable to Americans? FRONTLINE correspondent T.R. Reid [...]

Annotated Bibliography by Alice Chen, M.D.

Annotated Bibliography

New Orleans considers Boston model for preventive, primary care

A group of community leaders and health care professionals from New Orleans are traveling to Boston to learn about implementing clinics for primary and preventive care. The group says a network of neighborhood-based care clinics could provide a medical home for patients and also serve as community centers to help rebuild the city.  Times-Picayune (New Orleans), [...]

Trained interpreters: a necessary expense

Scenario: Why should doctors provide interpreter services, and how can they afford to?
Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of ethnicity by any entity receiving federal funds, directs that physicians who receive Medicare and Medicaid funds must arrange interpretation for patients with little or no proficiency in English. [...]

Atul Gawande’s Writing

Whenever you ask me about books and articles that interpreters should read, I come up with a blank. This morning, though, there was an article in the “New York Times” about Atul Gawande, a surgeon whose essays I have been reading in “The New Yorker” for years. I love them because they look at medicine [...]

1 in 6 hospital stays involve circulatory disease

Heart disease, stroke, deep vein thrombosis and other diseases involving the circulatory system accounted for nearly 7 million hospital stays in 2004, according to a new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. That represents about one in every six hospital stays, accounting for the greatest proportion of stays after pregnancy and childbirth. [...]

SEIU announces new health care union

SEIU will unite nearly 1 million members who work in health care into a new national union called SEIU Healthcare, the organization announced today. Dennis Rivera, president of 1199 SEIU in New York, will leave that post to chair the new union in a move SEIU expects to become final this spring.

Survey finds high demand for hospital language services

While 80% of hospitals frequently treat patients with limited English proficiency, only 3% receive reimbursement for providing translation and interpretation services, according to a national survey released today by the AHA’s Health Research & Educational Trust affiliate. About one in five U.S. residents speak a language other than English at home. Hospitals reported encountering a [...]