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A growing number of Arkansas healthcare providers are getting Hispanid patients educational materials in Spanish

Healthcare Looks for Help with Hispanic Population

What difference does one word make? In the case of healthcare, it could be the difference between life and death, especially for non-English-speaking patients.

It isn’t news that the Hispanic population is a rapidly growing one in Arkansas, and that healthcare, like any other industry, has struggled to keep up.

Language  misunderstandings can end in tragedy.

The Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care (AFMC) has been working with healthcare providers for some time, and a poster they send to healthcare providers offers a striking example of the language barrier.

The text reads: “Do you know ‘once’ means 11 in Spanish?”

While it is pronounced differently (OWN-say), on a prescription pad it reads like the number 11.

Nancy Archer, RN, the director of the healthcare quality improvement program for AFMC, is charged with getting out the message about how AFMC can help providers.

“We actually go into the offices of the ones who request our assistance,” Archer explained. “And we assist them in redoing some of their work processes, from setting the appointments all the way up to providing follow-up care.” Archer said, however, “We are not teaching people languages. We provide Spanish materials for providers and also assist them with other things.”

Last quarter, 181,680 informational pieces were distributed, ranging from 38,685 well-child patient-education manuals in Spanish to 60 pneumonia postcards in Spanish.

AFMC also offers a translation service.

Archer added that some Spanish-speaking patients rely on their bi-lingual children to do the translating.

“People bring in their kids,” she said. “The child will speak English, while their parents are unable to. So you might have a situation where a young child could be relaying very important medical information. That is why it is so important to have these materials on hand, so those patients who don’t speak English can be informed on their own care.”

Not every clinic and hospital is relying on children to translate, though.

A telephone survey of healthcare facilities around the state indicated that some have a Spanish-speaking person on staff to assist. In
some cases, that person was not a healthcare provider. They may work in another department at the hospital or clinic and get called down to help when necessary. In other cases, an outside translator is brought in.

Another development, particularly in northwest Arkansas (which has a fast-growing Hispanic population), has been the rise of clinics that cater to the Hispanic community.

But other options exist, like teaching Spanish to providers.

The Teaching Option
Dixie Thackston has been a Spanish instructor for 25 years and currently works for the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain.

The idea is to train healthcare workers to the point where they can be conversational with the Hispanic population in a clinical setting.
“It is very job specific,” Thackston emphasized. “It is a non-grammar-based program and they learn terms and expressions specific to what they do. They won’t be able to read Spanish when they are done or speak Spanish, outside the terms that they learn.”
An example would be something like this, “I’m going to give an injection.”

Thackston would teach workers to speak the words phonetically, placing the emphasis on the words in all-capital letters: “VOY/ah/poh-NAIR-lay/OO-nah/Een-yeck-SEE-OHN.”

The method seems simple enough, and Thackston reports good results.

“The ones who have gone through the other classes,” she said, “felt like they didn’t waste their time. I’ve gotten positive comments from every class.”

The classes may represent 16 to 20 hours of classroom time, split however the facility decides.

“Some do it over two days, others spread it out more,” Thackston said. “It all depends on what kind of time they have to devote to it.”

March 2007

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