The Role of Language Proficiency Assessment in Improving Pharmacy Patient Communication

A pharmacist and patient look at an iPad together.

Offering multilingual care to patients isn’t as simple as hiring a bilingual employee to accurately convey information to staff and patients, as healthcare communication involves complex medical and pharmaceutical terminology. CEO of Certified Languages International, Kristin Quinlan, outlines what steps healthcare organizations should take to successfully speak to patients in-language, including the value and importance of having bilingual staff tested and verified by a third party.

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Providing on-demand, 24/7 connection to professional interpreters in 230+ languages, CLI believes that, like accessibility in society and technology, “language access is a human right.”
Remote medical interpreters, like CLI’s Helen Sweeney, played crucial roles during the pandemic, ensuring patients with a non-English language preference had access to healthcare amidst restrictions.
Healthcare systems can get the best of both worlds (the efficiency of remote + the personal touch of on-site) by setting up an internal call center for staff interpreters.