Clinician ratings of interpreter mediated visits in underserved primary care settings with ad hoc, in-person professional, and video conferencing modes.
Linguistic interpretation ameliorates health disparities disfavoring underserved limited English-proficient patients, yet few studies have compared clinician satisfaction with these services. Self-administered clinician post-visit surveys compared the quality of interpretation and communication, visit satisfaction, degree of patient engagement, and cultural competence of visits using untrained people acting as interpreters (ad hoc), in-person professional, or video conferencing professional interpretation for 283 visits. Adjusting for clinician and patient characteristics, the quality of interpretation of in-person and video conferencing modes were rated similarly (OR 1.79, 95% CI 0.74, 4.33). The quality of in-person (OR 5.55, 95% CI 1.50, 20.51) and video conferencing (OR 3.10, 95% CI 1.16, 8.31) were rated higher than ad hoc interpretation. Self-assessed cultural competence was better for in-person versus video conferencing interpretation (OR 2.32, 95% CI 1.11, 4.86). Video conferencing interpretation increases access without compromising quality, but cultural nuances may be better addressed by in-person interpreters. Professional interpretation is superior to ad hoc (OR 4.15, 95% CI 1.43, 12.09).
Nápoles
Anna M
AM
Effectiveness Research Center for Diverse Populations, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143-0320, USA.
Santoyo-Olsson
Jasmine
J
Karliner
Leah S
LS
O'Brien
Helen
H
Gregorich
Steven E
SE
Pérez-Stable
Eliseo J
EJ
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002140:California; D003144:Communication Barriers; D054521:Cultural Competency; D003625:Data Collection; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D054625:Healthcare Disparities; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008507:Medically Underserved Area; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014175:Translating; D049269:Videoconferencing