Communicating Through Healthcare Interpreters

Communicating Through Healthcare Interpreters is organized by University of Arizona College of Medicine Office of Continuing Medical Education (OCME) and would be held during Sep 01, 2016 - Aug 31, 2018. This CME Conference has been approved with a maximum of 2.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits.

This course will help you meet your ethical responsibilities and reduce the risks that can arise from unsuccessful communication by teaching you how to work with trained medical interpreters.

Couse Objectives:
Identify and avoid the potential consequences of using unqualified interpreters (including family members, children, and untrained bilingual staff), including:

• Decreased quality of care
• Limited access to care, resulting in civil rights violations, accreditation issues, and professional liability
• Increased cost of care

Perform the following when working with an interpreter:

• Greet patients appropriately
• Perform an appropriate pre-session with the interpreter
• Establish the role of the interpreter with the patient
• Establish rapport with the patient through the interpreter
• Position the interpreter effectively vis-a-vis the patient
• Address the patient directly
• Modify speech patterns to optimize the accuracy of the interpretation
• Ensure that patients know what is being discussed if you need to speak directly with the interpreter
• Guide an untrained interpreter

Physicians must recognize and account for linguistic factors that affect patients' understanding of medical information. This course will help you meet your ethical responsibilities and reduce the risks that can arise from unsuccessful communication by teaching you how to work with trained medical interpreters.

Propose strategies to address the following issues when working with Limited English Proficient (LEP) patients:

Track language needs
• Evaluate your own and your staff's level of language capacity
• Choose an appropriate interpreter given different circumstances
• Use an interpreter as a culture broker

Employ the following in mental health settings:

• Factor cultural differences into an assessment of abnormal behavior and appropriate development
• Identify and manage secondary trauma in interpreters
• Adapt the use of standardized testing instruments appropriately across languages

Additional details will be posted as soon as they are available.