During patient handoffs—that is, the process of transferring a patient from one caretaker or team to another in a healthcare setting—it’s hard to overstate the importance of clear, effective communication.
Patient handoffs are a key part of the medical process, typically occurring at the beginning or end of a care team’s shift, when a patient moves to another location, or, in telehealth settings, when a patient is transferred by phone or video call. Thorough and detailed communication during these handoffs ensures continuity of care, minimizing the risk of serious errors when shifting from one caretaker to the next. When it comes to patients with limited English proficiency (LEP), there’s a high risk of communication errors.
Miscommunication during patient handoffs can disrupt the continuity of a patient’s care, potentially leading to minor or major errors in their care. When working with patients who have LEP, it’s absolutely imperative to bridge any linguistic gaps between the care teams and the patient, so that no information is lost during the patient handoff.
Medical interpreters play an important role in any efforts to improve patient handoffs for patients with LEP. In this blog post, we’ll go over some common communication errors that come up during handoffs of LEP patients, and ways that interpreters and other language assistance services can help you improve patient handoffs within your organization.
1. Patient Handoffs at Risk for Incomplete Transfer of Information
Linguistic gaps during patient handoffs can prevent one care team from adequately informing the next, leading to an incomplete transfer of information. For example, one care team may fail to accurately convey information about the patient’s treatment plan and care preferences due to the language barrier between them and the patient. In particularly grave circumstances, this missing information can delay the new care team’s response to changes in the patient’s condition, breaking the continuity in their care.
To improve patient handoffs and mitigate the risk of this kind of error, interpreters can play a critical role. Interpreters serve as a linguistic bridge between doctors, nurses and the patient, ensuring that each party fully understands what is being discussed during the handoff—the presence of an interpreter empowers the patient to speak up and self-advocate if they perceive miscommunication between the two care teams during the handoff.
2. Misinterpretation of Instructions during Handoffs
During a patient handoff, caretakers typically give the patient information about their medication, follow-up appointments, and self-care procedures. It can be especially difficult for LEP patients to understand and properly interpret these instructions without the aid of an interpreter—depending on their level of English, they may not understand any of the instructions at all, or they may miss crucial details and follow the instructions inadequately.
It’s important to make sure that the patient fully understands this information, or else it could lead to nonadherence of these important instructions. At best, this misinterpretation will be swiftly corrected by the following care team; at worst, improperly following the care team’s instructions could lead the patient’s condition to worsen.
Having an interpreter available around the clock is one way to remedy this error—an interpreter allows care teams to rest easy knowing that their LEP patients fully understand the instructions they’ve been given. The interpreter can also play a more active role in these settings to make sure the patient fully understands these instructions before the handoff is finished. And by having somebody available on-call in between rounds, you ensure that somebody is available to interpret during emergencies and other unplanned instances, preventing any delays to the patient’s care.
3. Legal and Ethical Implications
Clear communication during patient handoffs is essential to uphold legal and ethical standards in healthcare. Miscommunication with LEP patients can compromise a patient’s informed consent and lead to misunderstandings about treatment plans. Failure to ensure that LEP patients fully understand their care can not only result in medical errors and adverse health outcomes, but also legal repercussions, as patients have a legal right to culturally competent language services.
Because miscommunication can have such serious impacts on a patient’s health outcome, healthcare providers have an ethical obligation to bridge linguistic gaps between them and their patients. Proper use of interpreters and language services can mitigate these risks, ensuring compliance with legal and ethical responsibilities.
4. Cultural Sensitivity
Language isn’t the only important factor when dealing with patients who have LEP—cultural differences must also be accounted for. A French-speaking patient with LEP from Haiti, for example, is likely to have different cultural nuances than a French speaker from Canada.
As a result, it’s important to be aware of certain cultural sensitivities—a handoff that violates the patient’s cultural norms and beliefs may diminish the patient’s trust in their healthcare providers. In turn, this can have a negative impact on the relationship between the patient and the next care team, potentially leading to adverse outcomes.
To improve cultural sensitivity in patient handoffs, consider working with an interpreter from a similar background as the patient if possible—in the example above, a French interpreter from Haiti, or with deep knowledge of Haitian culture, may be more well-suited to interpret than a French interpreter from France. Additionally, holding cultural sensitivity training sessions for your doctors, nurses, and other patient-facing employees can go a long way toward improving your patient handoffs with LEP patients.
5. Patient Handoff Documentation Accuracy
Accurate documentation during patient handoffs is vital for maintaining continuity of care. Linguistic gaps and miscommunication between doctors and patients can lead to incomplete or incorrect recording of the patient’s current status, treatment plans, and care needs. These inaccuracies can hinder subsequent healthcare providers from delivering appropriate care, increasing the risk of medical errors and adverse events.
Working with an interpreter ensures that the care team understands and correctly documents all of the relevant information. This enables all parties involved in the patient handoff to communicate clearly and maintain precise records.
Summary
Interpreters can play an important role in your efforts to improve patient handoffs for individuals with LEP. Several communication errors may arise when caring for patients with LEP—here’s how interpreters can help fix each one:
- Incomplete transfer of information: Interpreters ensure that all relevant information is conveyed in a language that care teams and patients can understand, so nothing important slips through the cracks.
- Misinterpretation of instructions: Interpreters can provide the care team’s instructions to patients in language that they understand, minimizing the risk of nonadherence to important instructions.
- Legal and ethical implications: Patients have a legal and ethical right to understand their healthcare providers—interpreters bridge any linguistic gaps that exist between them and their care team.
- Cultural sensitivity: Interpreters from similar cultural and linguistic backgrounds as your patients can build trust with your patient and prevent cultural misunderstandings.
- Documentation accuracy: Working with an interpreter ensures that you get all of the information you need as you’re filling out important records and paperwork so you can pass it on to the following care team.
At Avantpage, we provide medical interpreting services in more than 150 different languages—our medical interpreters are highly skilled in bridging linguistic gaps during patient handoffs and other critical healthcare processes. To learn more about our services, contact us today at (530) 750-2040 or [email protected].
