Medical Center Goes To Video To Help Ease Language Barrier
Posted 4/2/2007
Watch COLUMBUS, Ohio - Choosing just the right words to describe your pain to a nurse or physician can be difficult, especially if you are in the midst of a medical emergency. However, for people not familiar with the English language, the gap in communications only increases that frustration and can result in a misdiagnosis.
As the number of non-English speaking patients seeking care in U.S. hospitals increases, some health care facilities are turning to interpreters who are accessible via real-time video technology. Ohio State University Medical Center was one of the first facilities in the country to augment conventional on-site interpreters with interpreters available via a two-way camera and video setup.
“It’s the right resource in the right places,” said Richard Potts of the video interpreter service.
Potts, director of customer service, worked with Language Access Network to introduce the system at Ohio State last year. It is currently used in the medical center’s two emergency departments, labor and delivery unit and an outpatient practice.
“The benefit of the video service is that it can help initiate conversation between the patient and health care provider within minutes, 24-hours a day.”
Few hospitals have enough interpreters on staff who can serve the needs of a growing and culturally diverse population, and the wait for an interpreter to arrive at the hospital can be lengthy, particularly at night.
Potts says more than 1,000 patients request interpreter services each month at the medical center, and approximately 10 percent of those interactions are taking place with the video service.
The video system is portable and can be moved into the patient’s room for privacy. “We can take it to any bedside, we can take it out to triage, we can take it wherever it’s needed in the emergency department and then talk directly to the patient without needing another person in the room,” said Lisa Koser, a nurse in the emergency department at Ohio State University Hospital East.
When time matters, the interactive technology is valuable, said Koser. “It can be a life-saving system, so that we can find out exactly what’s going on with patients. If we can’t understand what they’re saying, then sometimes we will not know how to treat them.”
Columbus-based Language Access Network, Inc. provides translation services for more than 150 different languages through real-time, interactive video technology.
# # #Contact:
David Crawford
Medical Center Communications
614.293.3737
David.Crawford@osumc.edu