Health

Goals & Activities

• "WHY ARE LANGUAGE SERVICES IMPORTANT IN HEALTH CARE?
  A CASE FOR NEW ORLEANS

  Barriers to quality care are significant for all uninsured and underinsured residents of New Orleans. Individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) face the added difficulty of poor communication. Communication is a critical element of patient safety and quality care. Communication barriers between provider and patient lead to
  decreased use of preventive services, misuse of services, and higher rates of hospitalization and drug complications. The Louisiana Language Access Coalition Health Committee seeks to address issue of access to quality health care and health disparities for LEP individuals by eliminating barriers to effective communication."

• LLAC calls for Medicaid Waiver to reimburse for interpreter and translation services

  LLAC thanks Mara Youdelman at the National Health Law Program for her consultation in drafting the legalese that LLAC is proposing.

Resources & Tools

• Hands-On Resources and Materials:
  • "Interpreter Services" Language Poster
  • Ask Me 3 – National Patient Safety Foundation
  • ATA – American Translators Association
  • Ethnomed/Spanish Education Materials
  • MedLine Plus – Health Information in Multiple Languages
  • PHQ9 in Spanish
  • Video Vignettes
  • www.lep.gov
  • Free online Nursing and Social Work CEUs related to culturally and linguistically competent health care (www.thinkculturalhealth.org)

• Toolkits and Models for Implementing LAS:
  • A Patient Centered Guide to Implementing Language Access Services in Healthcare
  • CLAS Advocacy Support
  • Cultural and Linguistic Competence Policy Assessment
  • Cultural and Linguistic Competence Policy Assessment – Guide to Implementation
  • Health Care Language Services Implementation Guide – Office of Minority Health
  • HRET Disparities Toolkit for Collective Race, Ethnicity Data
  • Improving Communication – Improving Care - AMA
  • Language Assistance Planning and Self-Assessment Tool
  • Language Services Action Kit
  • Medicaid and SCHIP Reimbursement Models
  • One Size Does Not Fit All
  • Promising Practices for Patient Centered Communication with Vulnerable Populations: Examples from Eight Hospitals
  • Speaking Together Toolkit – RWJF
  • StraightTalk – Model Policies
  • Video: Improving Patient-Provider Communication – Joint Commission