Language barriers

Language barriers can impede access to healthcare, compromise quality of care and increase the risk of adverse health outcomes.  Recent data from the American Community Survey reports that 8.6% of the population has limited English proficiency.  Language barriers are associated with lower access to primary and preventive care, impaired patient comprehension, lower patient adherence, and lower patient satisfaction.  Compared with English-proficient patients, these patients report less satisfaction with medical encounters, have a lower rate of diagnostic testing and receive less explanation and follow-up. Half  of limited-English-proficient patient events involved some physical harm, whereas in English-proficient patient events, only 29.5% of adverse events resulted in physical harm.  These adverse events in limited-English-proficient patients were more likely to be caused by communication errors.

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