The Medical Leadership Council’s Language Access Database provides links to more than 150 organizations and Web sites that provide services and materials in languages other than English.
Below please find links to other resources as well.
Providing Language Access Services
Interpreter Guidelines – Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center
This one-page chart, "Guidelines for Use of Interpreting Modes," outlines ways of providing interpreter services that meet various patient needs. The recommendations distinguish between speaker phone, portable phone with headsets, video, and face-to-face interpretation.
Doctoring Across the Language Divide: Trained medical interpreters can be the key to communication between physicians and patients
Alice Chen, MD, MPH, medical director of the General Medicine Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital and assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, uses patient examples to show how working with a trained interpreter can help physicians gain critical patient information and deliver better health care. Published in the journal Health Affairs (Vol. 25, No. 3, May/June 2006).
Addressing Language Access in Your Practice: A Toolkit for Physicians and Their Staff Members
Prepared by the California Academy of Family Physicians, this toolkit presents a systems approach to redesigning medical office practices to provide the highest quality care possible to patients who speak limited English.
California Medical Association's Legal Counsel Clarifications on Americans with Disabilities Act and Office of Civil Rights Guidelines on Preventing Discrimination Against People with Limited English Proficiency
Using a question-and-answer format, CMA’s legal counsel provides information on how to comply with federal laws governing the provision of interpretation and translation services in health care.
Demographics
2008 Report on Language Access Needs, by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Los Angeles
The Center’s report describes language access needs in LA County, where one-third of residents face language barriers. Nearly half of the 3.9 million patient visits handled by the LA Department of Health Services in 2006 involved people with limited English language skills. Advocates are calling on the county to provide more interpreter services and more English classes.
Key Facts: Race, Ethnicity & Medical Care
This 2007 report published by the Kaiser Family Foundation is intended to serve as a quick reference source on the health, health insurance coverage, access, and quality of health care of racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. 'This document highlights some of the best available data and research in these areas,' the study's authors say. Focusing on primary and preventive care and chronic conditions, the report offers clear information on health disparities.
Health Disparities
DVD of 2008 PBS Documentary “Unnatural Causes”
English and Spanish DVDs of the seven-part public TV documentary "Unnatural Causes: Is inequality making us sick?" are available beginning in May 2008 for the series televised in March and April. The Web site, in English and Spanish, features case studies, video clips, interviews with nationally prominent academics and advocates, and an Action Center. The Health Equity section of the Web site provides a key bibliography of important background sources.
2007 National Health Care Disparities Report
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services found in the 2007 National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR) that overall disparities in quality and access for minority groups and poor populations have not been reduced since the first NHDR. Based on 2000 and 2001 data compared with this year's 2004 and 2005 data, the number of measures on which disparities have become significantly worse or have remained unchanged since the first NHDR is higher than the number of measures on which they have become significantly better for Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Asians, and poor populations.
General/Multiple Resources
Publications by The California Endowment
The Endowment, funder of the Medical Leadership Council, provides a wide variety of reports, toolkits, and information resources on its Web site. Click on "Publications/Program Areas" on the home page to find downloadable print materials addressing language access, health disparities, culturally proficient health systems, and more.
The National Center for Cultural Competence
The mission of the National Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University is to increase the capacity of health and mental health programs to design, implement, and evaluate culturally and linguistically competent service delivery systems. Click on "Information for Practitioners & Providers" on the Center's Web site home page.
The Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII)
BARHII is a unique undertaking by local health departments in the San Francisco Bay Area to confront health inequities. The regional collaboration includes public health directors, health officers, senior managers and staff from Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Solano counties, and the City of Berkeley. Click on "Publications & Tools/Resource Library" on the Web site home page.
New American Media
The Health beat on this Web site provides original coverage, youth media stories and ethnic media articles on health care and policy. New American Media is the nation's first and largest national collaboration and advocate of ethnic news organizations. The nation's 3000+ ethnic media outlets comprise the fastest growing sector of American journalism.
