Patient education healthcare translation is the process of translating medical information, materials, and resources into different languages to provide patients with essential healthcare information in their native language. It aims to improve patient understanding, engagement, and empowerment in managing health conditions and treatment plans. The costs of patient education healthcare translation may seem high, but the costs of neglecting to provide this resource are likely to be higher. Arguably more importantly, the benefits can easily outweigh the costs.
You may be familiar with US legislation that requires insurance companies and organizations receiving federal funds to provide disclosures, notices, and other means of access to healthcare in languages other than English (and we examine that legislation more in-depth in a prior post). And you may think that if this legislation doesn’t apply to you, then you don’t stand to gain from providing patient education healthcare translation. But according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, “CLAS [culturally and linguistically appropriate services]… could ultimately help reduce health disparities.” So, even if you aren’t legally obligated to provide patient education healthcare translation, you can still participate in an important strategy towards helping close the gap in health outcomes!
Who Needs Patient Education Healthcare Translation?
According to data from the US Census Bureau’s 2009 – 2013 American Community Survey, over 20% of US residents speak a language other than English at home, and 8.6% report that they speak English less than “very well.” Furthermore, according to the National Library of Medicine, almost 90% of adults – that’s adults generally, not just adults with limited English proficiency – have difficulty using the health information they encounter in various settings. If most adults struggle with health information in their own language, imagine how much more challenging this may be for individuals with limited English proficiency. You can find more information about this topic in our post about health literacy assessment and translation.
Why Provide Patient Education Healthcare Translation?
We’ve already established that providing patient education healthcare translation can improve quality of care and services and help eliminate disparities in health and healthcare. Equally compelling are the potential outcomes if you do not provide this resource. The National Standard for CLAS in Healthcare: A Blueprint points to an increase in the likelihood of miscommunication and misunderstanding, which can lead to errors. Linguistic misunderstandings in a variety of settings can range from comical to offensive to life-threatening. Given the potential for the latter in healthcare (allergies, dosages, symptom identification, etc., etc.), ensuring that patients are fully informed about their conditions, treatment options, etc. can be a matter of life or death. And when a patient does not have a confident command of English, being fully informed means having patient information in their first language.
Furthermore, in a study done by CSA Research, 60% of consumers surveyed in 10 non-English-speaking countries “rarely or never buy” from websites presented only in English. 30% of respondents never buy from English-only sites, and 56% of those surveyed say that they “either spend more time on sites in their own language… or boycott English-language URLs altogether.” The same study showed that 66.7% of respondents with minimal to no English proficiency classified in-language information about food, personal care (including pharmaceutical products) and household items as important or very important when purchasing these things.
If you are a providing leaflets, brochures or other materials free of charge to patients, the purchasing angle obviously does not apply here. The question of engagement, however, is still a factor. Patients who receive information that they struggle to understand may respond to that information with apathy, frustration or even fear; they may not be motivated to put in the additional effort required to understand the material, they may not have the time or resources to make that effort or give up after making an effort that doesn’t yield any further comprehension, or even be actively afraid of making a mistake based on a misinterpretation.
The National Standard for CLAS in Healthcare: A Blueprint addresses this point from the other side of the coin: “[b]y implementing culturally and linguistically appropriate services… an organization can develop a positive reputation in the service area and therefore expand its market share.” This means that the combined outcome of providing patient education healthcare translation is serving more patients, better. A win-win! And if you are marketing a product to non-English speakers, then the financial implications of the CSA Research study are obvious: you will grow your customer base by providing information in your target audience’s primary language.
If you’ve decided that patient information healthcare translation is a must for your organization, it is equally important to determine when and how to best go about providing it.
When to Have Patient Education Healthcare Translation Done
As we explored in our last post about the pain points in the translation cycle, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The same can be said for providing patient education healthcare translation. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights points out that language assistance “should be provided at a time and place that avoid the effective denial of the service, benefit or right … or the imposition of a… delay in… important rights, benefits or services.” This means being prepared with translated materials rather than seeking them out in response to a crisis. Get ahead of any issues that may arise from not having these materials available and have translations done sooner rather than later. If you are a healthcare marketing agency, you want to be proactive with your clients and design with that in mind.
How to Provide Relevant Patient Education Healthcare Translation
Here’s what you shouldn’t do: have family members or friends provide these translations. The National Standard for CLAS in Healthcare: A Blueprint points out that “[u]ntrained family, friends, minors and staff often do not possess the necessary skills to provide meaningful language services” and highlights that matters such as confidentiality and objectivity can suffer when patients’ family or friends serve as their medical translators and interpreters. The Blueprint adds that having children translate or interpret for their parents or grandparents can place tension on the relationship as well as stress and emotional strain on the child.
The mention of “untrained staff” is particularly interesting. It may seem like a given that a bilingual staff member would be equipped to serve as a translator or interpreter. This may not necessarily be true for a number of reasons. The first is that the subject matter might not be within their area of expertise. Another is that they don’t have the specialized knowledge and skills that language service providers (LSPs) have learned in a dedicated academic or professional program or through years of experience. And then there is the risk that adding the responsibility of translating or interpreting to an employee’s current workload can stretch them too thin. This can lead to a lower quality of work, employee burnout, or both.
The answer, then, is to contract an LSP whose sole priority is to provide you with well-researched and accurate translations that fit you and your clients’ needs. You want to be sure that your LSP has the knowledge and experience necessary to provide patient education healthcare translation that will be useful and effective. Language Solutions, Inc. has been working with dedicated translators in healthcare for years, and healthcare translations (between languages as well as plain language writing in English) are one of our specialties.
Who, Revisited
Depending on your industry and role, you may already know exactly how you need to move forward – namely, who your stakeholders are and in what language(s) you need patient education healthcare translation. If you are not to this point yet, you can get there with a Language Needs Assessment. There is no one way to go about this, but we’ll outline some ideas to help you get started.
The first is accessing data that has already been published, such as the MLA Language Map. This resource, by its own description, “uses aggregated data from the 2006 – 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) to display the locations and numbers of speakers of twelve languages commonly spoken in the United States.” Be aware though, that Spanish is not included on this map. You can also always go directly to the source of the MLA Language Map, the American Community Survey, to find statistics on language use by county. 
Or, you may prefer to seek more personalized data for your community or customer base. The National Standard for CLAS in Healthcare: A Blueprint encourages “processes that allow for self-identification and avoid the use of observational/visual assessment methods” but also warns that “many individuals may be hesitant to provide personal information… due to concerns about privacy or fear of negative reprisals.” If you would like to survey your clients but are concerned about this hesitation to provide identifying information, you can always de-identify it! The Blueprint suggests using a code for personal information such as language spoken at home and level of English proficiency so that these answers can be aggregated based on their identifying code without being linked to any one person.
Providing patient education healthcare translation may seem complicated, but it doesn’t need to be. And for all the reasons we’ve just covered, we’re confident that you’ll find the benefits far outweigh the costs! Once you’ve determined which language(s) you’d like to be able to provide to your patients or customers, drop us a line – we work with over 40, from Afrikaans to Vietnamese, Burmese to Swahili.
