An article published late last year reveals some troubling facts and statistics about patients with limited knowledge of English in American hospitals. Among these is the fact that, due to communication challenges, the risk for various kinds of health complications increases twofold for these patients.
Surprisingly, at the root of many errors is doctors deciding to use their limited knowledge of a foreign language to communicate with patients. The correct solution would be specially trained medical interpreters. This would reduce communication errors by an estimated 670,000 cases.
Read on to learn more about why life-endangering medical communication errors persist in American hospitals, and some possible solutions.
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