Quality in practice: integrating routine collection of patient language data into hospital practice PATRICIA HUDELSON 1 , MELISSA DOMINICÉ DAO 1 AND SOPHIE DURIEUX-PAILLARD 2 1 Division of Primary Care Medicine, Department of Community Medicine, Primary Care and Emergency Medicine, University Hospitals of Geneva, 4, rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1211 Geneva 14, Switzerland, and 2 Programme Santé Migrants, Division of Primary Care Medicine, Department of Community Medicine, Primary Care and Emergency Medicine, University Hospitals of Geneva, 89 rue de Lyon, 1203 Geneva, Switzerland Address reprint requests to: Patricia Hudelson, Division of Primary Care Medicine, Department of Community Medicine, Primary Care and Emergency Medicine, University Hospitals of Geneva, 4, rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1211 Geneva 14, Switzerland. Tel: +41-22-372-9669; Fax: +41-22-372-9600; E-mail: patricia.hudelson@hcuge.ch Accepted for publication 17 March 2013 Abstract Quality problem. Timely identification of patients’ language needs can facilitate the provision of language-appropriate services and contribute to quality of care, clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. Initial assessment. At the University Hospitals of Geneva, Switzerland, timely organization of interpreter services was hindered by the lack of systematic patient language data collection. Choice of solution. We explored the feasibility and acceptability of a procedure for collecting patient language data at the first point of contact, prior to its hospital-wide implementation. Implementation. During a one-week period, receptionists and triage nurses in eight clinical services tested a new procedure for collecting patient language data. Patients were asked to identify their primary language and other languages they would be com- fortable speaking with their doctor. Staff noted patients’ answers on a paper form and provided informal feedback on their ex- perience with the procedure. Evaluation. Registration staff encountered few difficulties collecting patient language data and thought that the two questions could easily be incorporated into existing administrative routines. Following the pilot test, two language fields with scroll-down language menus were added to the electronic patient file, and the subsequent filling-in of these fields has been rapid and hospital wide. Lessons learned. Our experience suggests that routine collection of patient language data at first point of contact is both feasible and acceptable and that involving staff in a pilot project may facilitate hospital-wide implementation. Future efforts should focus on exploring the sensitivity and speci ficity of the proposed questions, as well as the impact of data collection on interpreter use. Keywords: patient language data, quality of care, patient–provider communication, language barriers Quality problem Timely identification of patients’ language needs can facilitate the provision of language-appropriate services, which contrib- ute to quality of care, clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction for foreign-language-speaking patients [1]. Aggregate patient language data can contribute to effective planning of interpret- er services by identifying the range of languages and number of interpreters needed, as well as budgetary requirements. Conversely, the lack of a standardized means to record patient language data can lead to missing or incomplete information, misspelled language names and difficulty retrieving the infor- mation from the patient file. The need for routine data collection on the language needs of patients has been clearly recognized in the USA. The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations considers the provision of language-appropriate services to be an important quality and safety issue and began requiring hospitals to collect data on patients’ primary oral and preferred written language in 2006 [2]. In 2009, the Institute of Medicine also recommended routine collection of language needs [3]. International Journal for Quality in Health Care vol. 25 no. 4 © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press in association with the International Society for Quality in Health Care; all rights reserved 437 International Journal for Quality in Health Care 2013; Volume 25, Number 4: pp. 437–442 10.1093/intqhc/mzt035 Advance Access Publication: 21 May 2013 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/intqhc/article-abstract/25/4/437/1799072 by guest on 06 June 2020