Benefits of Bilingual Services in Community Health - Coursework Example

Benefits of Bilingual Services in Community Health Bilingual services in community health arevery important. This is because they have very many benefits. The disparity in health care provision in US one of its progression is due to language barriers. More than 9 percent of Americans do not speak English. This poses a big problem to their health care accessibility. The doctors are not able to understand them whereby studies show that family members forced by these circumstances to offer translation services are not objective. Moreover, other hospital staffs who do not have any medical training but are bilingual do not offer the appropriate translation. This is because they are not familiar with medical terminology. Thus, it is extremely important for community health centers to provide bilingual services for people who do not understand English. Policy makers and health insurance providers have recognized the benefits of bilingual services in community health and have taken measures to ensure the minority receive the best possible care that is similar to their English-speaking counterparts. Hence, promoting health accessibility, this in turn leads to realization of patients’ satisfaction. As an intern at the Chinatown Public Heath Center in Sam Francisco, I have been able to witness the importance of bilingual healthcare providers firsthand. Introduction The greatness and strength of America lies in the diversity of its people and their different cultures. However, the cultural differences present in America can and do present major obstacles to implementing effective community health care programs and services. According to Overman (2009), statistics show that members of minority groups, regardless of their insurance status, income or community residence, are not as healthy when compared to their Caucasian counterparts. Language barriers have long remained as sources of healthcare disparities. The demographic shifts in minority populations and the resulting diversity in health care providers treating more patients have increased interest among health professionals. This increased interest is not only evident in health care providers but also in patients, educators, policy makers and accreditation as well as credential agencies. In 2001, the Minority Health office published standards for culturally and linguistically appropriate services in health care. McKenzie, Pinger and Kotecki (2012) contend one of the most important standards published is that each healthcare facility ought to have a language assistance that will act as an interpreter but not rely on one’s family members to avail that service. . Increasing the cultural appropriate services, like the bilingual services in community health care, leads to improved satisfaction, outcomes and efficiency for their minority patients. Method Being an intern in the Chinatown Public Health Centre has exposed me to the language barriers affecting the minorities in this country. Several researches carried out have unveiled serious problems facing the minorities who do not understand English to the extent of not being able to express self. This is due to statistics showing that the natives are healthier than the minorities regardless of factors like income, insurance status and neighborhood. Other studies have shown that in situations where there were bilingual health care providers, the patients were satisfied, happy and healthier (Overman, 2009). According to Kronenfeld (2011), English is regarded as the “mother tongue” in the United States. Nevertheless, very many people are not proficient in using it to relay what they want to their peers. Statistics shows approximately 9 percent of Americans are not proficient in English. In some parts of the state, the percentages are even higher. One in every five people in California comprises Limited English Proficiency (LEP) category. Additionally, over 20 percent of the US population as well as more than 46 percent of people residing in California speak other languages rather than English at home. Language and cultural barriers are responsible for the health disparities in America thus acting as impediments to patient participation in health care and health care decision-making. Snowden & McClellan (2013) conducted an investigation to find out how much implementing programs meant for language assistance. This is via community-based organizations, increased efficiency and improved the ease of access of all mental health patients under Californias Medicaid program referred to as the Medi-Cal, for persons with a limited English proficiency (Snowden & McClellan, 2013). They also investigated whether it reduced language-based treatment access disparities, increased patient satisfaction and improved their health status. The study utilized control group that was nonequivalent and a specific designed time series by exploiting the Medicaid structure in California, in which each county acts independently. In counties where they implemented a Spanish language threshold program, the onset was staggered from 1997 to 2006 over thirty-nine annual quarters. Snowden & McClellan (2013) identified two sets of counterfactuals for assessing the language assistance programs’ effect. Counties that implemented these programs acted as their own controls both before and after its implementation. The counties without the language assistance programs also acted as their own nonequivalent controls. This group involved the counties that do not have threshold languages, but have a variety of languages including Spanish, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Russian. Thus, they implemented several language assistance programs for the variety o languages (Snowden & McClellan, 2013). Results For all the years included in the analysis, proficient English speakers had a dramatic greater use of the mental health care under the Medi-Cal compared to their counterparts with a Limited English Proficiency (LEP). Furthermore, this discrepancy in the rates of penetration increased over time. This is due to English speakers accessing the mental healthcare increased. The rates of penetration for individuals with LEP were quite low. It remained at around 1percent consistently (Snowden & McClellan, 2013). The mental health treatment programs that are provided by the community-based organizations have moderately improved access to treatment after the implementation of the required language assistance programs. These programs were responsible for reducing the disparities in the access of mental health services. This means that bilingual services in community health help in the reduction of disparities in accessing health care. This leads to increased health levels and patient satisfaction (Snowden & McClellan, 2013). As an intern, I help in translating medical materials used in first Aid and CPR from Cantonese to Mandarin and from Mandarin to Cantonese. This helps those with limited English proficiency understand measures they would take in case of an emergency, that is First Aid and CPR. I also participate in making the learning materials available and useful to the delivery of the services in the centre. I believe that my internship has helped the people with LEP in some way. The federal law prohibits discrimination in health care on the basis of language and mandates language assistance for individuals who do not understand English when accessing health care. The health and human services department directs the Medicare and Medicaid funding to take reasonable steps of ensuring LEP patients have meaningful access to federal funded services and programs, the reasonable steps undertaken include free of charge translation services by bilingual health care practitioners and translated health documents (Kronenfeld, 2011). Discussion According to Snowden & McClellan (2013), a look into the mental health penetration for Medi-Cal LEP for almost ten years showed that bilingual community health services increased the rate of penetration for LEP persons. A greater bilingual staff presence for reducing the health disparities was a consideration in the promotion of a greater access to treatment services. It was discovered that the bilingual individuals were responsible for improving treatment access for the LEP persons. Interpreters are often bicultural and bilingual. The target language is their native language and they were often born into the culture that speaks it. They are especially helpful in assisting health care personnel to understand the aspects of language that go beyond words, including style and intonation. Americans tend to have a very direct cut-to-the-chase style, which is often exacerbated in time sensitive health care surroundings. This can be intimidating to the LEP. Moreover, some Asians provide contextual information that they feel the doctor will be able to understand how a symptom manifested. In addition, some languages have intonations that can be puzzling and abrasive to the westerners’ ears. This can be irritating as the doctors find this information vague and time consuming. The bilingual medical trained staffs come in handy in such situations as they save the day by interpreting (Dreachslin, Gilbert & Malone, 2013). Health insurers are very much aware of the disparities and some have even taken steps to reduce these disparities as they have realized the benefits of bilingual services. They have done this through providing interpreters and bilingual caregivers in order to improve health care for various minority groups. An enhanced bilingual service was designed to improve the Spanish-speaking patients’ satisfaction. Using cultural training and routing phone calls to the Spanish-speaking customer care professionals, the satisfaction of the patients who do not understand English was reported to have increased from 65 percent to 90 percent (Overman, 2009). Overman, S. (2009) argues that employers should not forget the migrant employees who are not proficient in English. Bilingual services are reasonable accommodations that employers should consider as they enable the employees who are not proficient in English access wellness programs and other healthcare services. This will pay off in the end. Integrating bilingual services into all employer-sponsored health and wellness programs increases the productivity of all employees, not only those who are not proficient in English. The health and human services department noted this. Thus, employers should ensure accessible design from the outset by including employees who are not proficient in English in the creation, development and design of the health and wellness programs and services. This should be included in the company’s mission statement. The community healthcare nurses have initiated and implemented several innovative methods of healthcare delivery because they realized that the community health centers do not meet the health needs of all the migrants who are not proficient in English. Although the changes are often minor and slow to occur, even minute changes are considered milestones. This is because the migrant lifestyle does not support any type of health stability, as their access to healthcare is very low when compared to that of the natives. Bilingual community health nurses travel to the regions with persons who are not proficient in English. This is an effective strategy for outreach health screening and education programs. By doing this, the community health nurses increase health access and overcome language barriers and lack of child health care. The nurses’ outreach programs succeed in encouraging migrant families prevent illnesses by immunizations, healthy lifestyles and good nutrition. The persons who are not proficient in English are able to benefit from health promotion, disease prevention and early treatment (Allender, Warner, Rector & Allender, 2014). A key advantage of using in-person professional bilingual interpreters in hospitals is that they have no stake in the answers the patient gives the physician since most probably they are strangers. When no interpreter is available, especially in community health centers, the doctors will have to use a patient’s relative who is bilingual or any hospital staff who understands a bit of the non-English speaking person’s native language. Using family members for interpretation poses objectivity problems. Moreover, the patient might not be comfortable discussing everything with the relative hence leading to omission of information that may be very important. In addition, families may intentionally hide some information from the doctor, as they may want to make the patient look good in front of the doctor, as some conditions are not socially acceptable in some cultures. The English of the relative interpreting may also not be that good and information may be lost in between or misinterpreted. Using other hospital staff that are bilingual but have not received medical training may be expeditious but the results yielded may be poor. This is because they may be unfamiliar with some medical terminology or not understand how to interpret objectively. Therefore, it is important to note that not just anyone can be used to interpret (Meyer & Apfelbaum, 2010). Conclusion An increment of culturally appropriate services like the bilingual services in community health care leads to improved satisfaction, outcomes and efficiency for their minority patients. From the discussions, it is evident that the community healthcare nurses, policy makers and health insurers have realized the benefits of bilingual services in community health and have made steps towards reducing the healthcare disparities. For example, all the county welfare departments and all other agencies in California receiving state assistance for the administration of public health care are required to make sure that bilingual services are present to meet the needs of the non-English speaking persons. The bilingual health care providers must have the cultural awareness and all language skills necessary to communicate fully with people with limited English proficiency (McKenzie, Pinger & Kotecki, 2012). Moreover, the bilingual health care providers must be able to communicate effectively with the non-English speaking persons to be able to provide them with the same health care services provided to the larger English speaking population. This will increase the overall health of the country and ensure patient satisfaction. ReferencesTop of ForBottom of Form Top of Form Top of Form Top of Form Top of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Allender, J. A., Warner, K. D., Rector, C. L., & Allender, J. A. (2014). Community and public health nursing: Promoting the publics health. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Health. Dreachslin, J. L., Gilbert, M. J., & Malone, B. (2013). Diversity and cultural competence in health care: A systems approach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Kronenfeld, J. J. (2011). Access to care and factors that impact access, patients as partners in care and changing roles of health providers. Bingley, England: Emerald Group Pub. McKenzie, J. F., Pinger, R. R., & Kotecki, J. E. (2012). An introduction to community health. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Meyer, B., & Apfelbaum, B. (2010). Multilingualism at work: From policies to practices in public, medical and business settings. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Pub. Co. Overman, S. (2009). Next-Generation Wellness at Work. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Snowden, L. R., & McClellan, S. R. (2013). Spanish-Language Community-Based Mental Health Treatment Programs, Policy-Required Language- Assistance Programming, and Mental Health Treatment Access Among Spanish-Speaking Clients. American Journal Of Public Health, 103(9), 1628-1633. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301238 Read More