A prescription for language barriers in healthcare

Language barriers can make their way into any situation, one of the most prominent ones being healthcare.

The National Library of Medicine cites that language barriers have a major impact on the cost and quality of healthcare. These barriers result in poor health outcomes due to a decreased follow-up rate, which in turn leads to reduced patient and medical provider satisfaction.

Teneo Linguistics Company offers language services to healthcare organizations that will help break through those barriers. TLC supports these organizations and their priorities through each step of their journey — patient-facing information (written translation) and communication (interpreting), as well as culturally appropriate translation for research, training, legal affairs, and marketing.

A 2020 study done by the NLM found that 66.7% of Limited English Proficient (LEP) patients had a barrier to accessing healthcare, 20% of LEP patients did not seek healthcare for fear of not understanding and 70.7% of LEP patients reported limited availability to interpreter services.

However, LEP patients who used interpreting services received more inpatient services and office visits. The NLM study shows that communication between patients and healthcare providers is at the heart of effective healthcare. 

TLC understands that its healthcare clients save lives and that requires the utmost care and attention to detail. Therefore, TLC makes it a mission to use the same care and urgency in the language services provided in support of healthcare.

TLC is the prescription for all your organization’s translation headaches. Contact us today and visit our life sciences webpage for more information.