Policy statements

I understand your confusion. This is a very complex issue.

Like everything else we do, our policies should always be evidence based, so your first step is to take a look at the literature. The National Institutes of Health have a considerable amount of information on the subject, so this is a great place to begin.

As an educator, I've always found it essential - with any assignment or project - to begin with the end in mind. What is the expected purpose of this policy? Is there a particular problem that it is supposed to solve? Have there been any quality issues or patient concerns? Let's face it, there is waaay too much paperwork in healthcare to justify creating any more "just because" - LOL.

Suggest you also look at the reading level of your written materials. Far too much patient ed materials are pitched at the 12th-grade or college level, where the average literacy is more like grade 6-8 ( you can look it up).

THE SMOG READABILITY FORMULA

And here's the place where you can paste in your text and see what it is.

FREE READABILITY FORMULAS TOOLS : FREE READABILITY TESTS FOR YOUR TEXT

I ran yours through it and these were the results:

Your text: The primary purpose of the majority of communicati ...(show all text)

Flesch Reading Ease score: 3.2 (text scale)

Flesch Reading Ease scored your text: very difficult to read.

[ f ] | [ a ] | [ r ]

Gunning Fog: 22.3 (text scale)

Gunning Fog scored your text: very difficult to read.

[ f ] | [ a ] | [ r ]

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 20.9

Grade level: College Graduate and above.

[ f ] | [ a ] | [ r ]

The Coleman-Liau Index: 18

Grade level: graduate college

[ f ] | [ a ] | [ r ]

The SMOG Index: 17.2

Grade level: graduate college

[ f ] | [ a ] | [ r ]

Automated Readability Index: 23.4

Grade level: College graduate

[ f ] | [ a ] | [ r ]

Linsear Write Formula : 25.2

Grade level: College Graduate and above.

And family members (or the housekeeping ladies or the nursing aides) should never be used as interpreters for other than the most basic communication. In many cultures and families there's great difficulty in communicating private health information-- patients may not want their family members to know some if it, family members may be embarrassed to translate some things, and often if family members aren't trained medical interpreters, they don't know what you're saying either.

Check with legal before you say to use family members as interpreters. You should have certified interpreters or language lines in place. We have families who do NOT want to

use the facility interpreters sign a waiver stating who they want (they have to designate someone). You don't know what they family member could be saying. We had a dad tell a mom the baby would be fine and home in a week...this baby was 23 weeks and gravely ill. We only found out when one of the residents overheard dad.

• Involve family members use for interpreters if necessary
  

What NicuGal said. I posted about this on another thread the other day, so if you saw it forgive me... But everywhere I've worked had a policy AGAINST using family members to translate. We can only use staff if they are certified as a medical interpreter. Even if we ourselves speak a 2nd language, we cannot have healthcare conversations with the pt unless we are ourselves certified. Medical/healthcare language can be very different than the vernacular they are familiar with.

A big example (which I used in my other post) is that in the Somali culture, the concepts of "stress" or "depressed" are so taboo that the language doesn't even contain words for them. So imagine asking a young dad to say to his wife "It's normal to feel a little depressed in the first weeks after having a baby, but make sure to tell your doctor if you feel depressed for more than 2-3 weeks, or if you feel so stressed that you're worried you could hurt your baby." How do we know that 1) the husband is willing to give his wife this advice, or 2) if he even knows how to convey the idea in Somali?

It's been stressed in RN orientation that use of certified medical interpreters is an equal access to healthcare issue.