TY - JOUR
T1 - Access to multilingual medication instructions at New York City pharmacies
AU - Weiss, Linda
AU - Gany, Francesca
AU - Rosenfeld, Peri
AU - Carrasquillo, Olveen
AU - Sharif, Iman
AU - Behar, Elana
AU - Ambizas, Emily
AU - Patel, Priti
AU - Schwartz, Lauren
AU - Mangione, Robert
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by a grant from the Altman Foundation. The authors would like to thank Kate Liebman, MPA, who was a program officer at the time the study was implemented and contributed to the design of the wider initiative as well as the pharmacists_ survey. We would also like to thank the co-members of our Community Advisory Board, each of whom contributed to the study design and/or the interpretation of the findings. They are: Sebastian Bonner, PhD (The New York Academy of Medicine), Adam Gurvitch, MS and Maysoun Freij, MPH, MA (The New York Immigration Coalition), Holly Lee, FNP (Charles B. Wang Community Health Center), Elyse Rudolph (Literacy Assistance Center), Linda van Schaick, MSEd (Bellevue Hospital Center), and Karen Scott Collins, MD, MPH (New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation). We also thank current and former New York Academy of Medicine colleagues: Tamar Bauer, JD and Jennifer Fuld, MA for the help with the project development; Michael Botsko, MSW, MPhil for the statistical assistance; and Anthony Lewis and James Egan, MPH for the technical support. Finally, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to all the pharmacists who kindly agreed to participate in our survey.
PY - 2007/11
Y1 - 2007/11
N2 - An essential component of quality care for limited English proficient (LEP) patients is language access. Linguistically accessible medication instructions are particularly important, given the serious consequences of error and patient responsibility for managing often complex medication regimens on their own. Approximately 21 million people in the U.S. were LEP at the time of the 2000 census, representing a 50% increase since 1990. Little information is available on their access to comprehensible medication instructions. In an effort to address this knowledge gap, we conducted a telephone survey of 200 randomly selected NYC pharmacies. The primary focus of the survey was translation need, capacity, and practice. The majority of pharmacists reported that they had LEP patients daily (88.0%) and had the capacity to translate prescription labels (79.5%). Among pharmacies serving LEP patients on a daily basis, just 38.6% translated labels daily; 22.7% never translated. In multivariate analysis, pharmacy type (OR=4.08, 95%CI=1.55-10.74, independent versus chain pharmacies) and proportion of Spanish-speaking LEP persons in the pharmacy's census tract (OR=1.09, 95%CI=1.05-1.13 for each 1% increase in Spanish LEP population) were associated with increased label translation. Although 88.5% of the pharmacies had bilingual staff, less than half were pharmacists or pharmacy interns and thus qualified to provide medication counseling. More than 80% of the pharmacies surveyed lacked systematic methods for identifying linguistic needs and for informing patients of translation capabilities. Consistent with efforts to improve language access in other health care settings, the critical gap in language appropriate pharmacy services must be addressed to meet the needs of the nation's large and ever-growing immigrant communities. Pharmacists may require supplemental training on the need and resources for meeting the verbal and written language requirements of their LEP patients. Dispensing software with accurate translation capability and telephonic interpretation services should be utilized in pharmacies serving LEP patients. Pharmacists should post signs and make other efforts to inform patients about the language resources available to them.
AB - An essential component of quality care for limited English proficient (LEP) patients is language access. Linguistically accessible medication instructions are particularly important, given the serious consequences of error and patient responsibility for managing often complex medication regimens on their own. Approximately 21 million people in the U.S. were LEP at the time of the 2000 census, representing a 50% increase since 1990. Little information is available on their access to comprehensible medication instructions. In an effort to address this knowledge gap, we conducted a telephone survey of 200 randomly selected NYC pharmacies. The primary focus of the survey was translation need, capacity, and practice. The majority of pharmacists reported that they had LEP patients daily (88.0%) and had the capacity to translate prescription labels (79.5%). Among pharmacies serving LEP patients on a daily basis, just 38.6% translated labels daily; 22.7% never translated. In multivariate analysis, pharmacy type (OR=4.08, 95%CI=1.55-10.74, independent versus chain pharmacies) and proportion of Spanish-speaking LEP persons in the pharmacy's census tract (OR=1.09, 95%CI=1.05-1.13 for each 1% increase in Spanish LEP population) were associated with increased label translation. Although 88.5% of the pharmacies had bilingual staff, less than half were pharmacists or pharmacy interns and thus qualified to provide medication counseling. More than 80% of the pharmacies surveyed lacked systematic methods for identifying linguistic needs and for informing patients of translation capabilities. Consistent with efforts to improve language access in other health care settings, the critical gap in language appropriate pharmacy services must be addressed to meet the needs of the nation's large and ever-growing immigrant communities. Pharmacists may require supplemental training on the need and resources for meeting the verbal and written language requirements of their LEP patients. Dispensing software with accurate translation capability and telephonic interpretation services should be utilized in pharmacies serving LEP patients. Pharmacists should post signs and make other efforts to inform patients about the language resources available to them.
KW - Immigrants
KW - Label translation
KW - Language access
KW - LEP patients
KW - Medical instructions
KW - Pharmacists
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U2 - 10.1007/s11524-007-9221-3
DO - 10.1007/s11524-007-9221-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 17926130
AN - SCOPUS:37249031024
VL - 84
SP - 742
EP - 754
JO - Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
JF - Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
SN - 1099-3460
IS - 6
ER -