A new report by The Joint Commission reveals that many US hospitals face language service compliancy problems

A recently-released white paper entitled "The New Joint Commission Standards for Patient-Centered Care" points out compliance problems with regards to language service requirements for Limited English Proficient (LEP) patients,

The report comes as new regulations by The Joint Commission  go into a one-year pilot phase. As of January 2012, hospitals that do not comply with these standards could risk losing their accreditation.

The paper draws some stark conclusions. Progress in serving LEP patients has been made, but strong language barriers still subsist in many hospitals, leaving LEPs “in one of the highest at-risk categories of patients today.”

In 2007, the Commission estimated that over 3,000 deaths or “sentinel events” occurred every year because of poor language services in healthcare settings. (A sentinel event is an unanticipated incident resulting in serious physical or psychological injury to a patient or patients, and not related to the natural course of the patient's illness.)

Despite these alarming statistics, the report emphasizes that a “distressing gap” exists between current language regulations for hospitals and the reality of the services actually provided.

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
  A leading language translation and interpretation service provider for more than 20 years.