Census data indicate that the current limited English proficient (LEP) population in the United States is approaching 26 million, almost double what it was in 1990. This growth trend represents an enormous challenge to our health care system. Language and cultural barriers jeopardize patient safety, negatively impact the speed and efficiency with which health care services are delivered, and cause feelings of frustration and helplessness for both staff and patients.

Language Access Programs

To deal with the problem, most hospitals have deployed language access programs that make strategic use of medically-certified interpreters, bilingual staff, contract interpreters, and over-the-phone interpretation services to support patient encounters, deliver patient education, and translate hospital documents and signage. Even so, significant gaps remain. Interpreters are not always readily available everywhere. For routine interactions, staff may not feel that calling an interpreter is warranted, and in emergency situations, there often isn't time. Even with language access programs in place, health care staffers still find themselves using pantomime gestures or depending on family members to interpret for them, and patients still leave hospitals with written discharge documents they can't read. Miscommunication and potentially dangerous misunderstandings are the inevitable result.

ProLingua, from Polyglot Systems, is a Web-based software application designed specifically to close these language gaps in the hospital setting and help minimize the risks associated with miscommunication. Used as a part of each hospital's language access program, ProLingua empowers the staff to communicate directly with LEP patients in their own language. ProLingua also offers a comprehensive library of multilingual educational tools and an enterprise-wide document management system that lets hospitals organize, customize, and disseminate translated documents. Written medication and discharge instructions specific to each patient can be created quickly and reliably. Rounding out the solution is a resource library for cultural and religious information created to supplement a hospital's cultural diversity program.

By adding ProLingua to a language access program, hospitals can:

• Optimize utilization of high-value, in-person interpreters
• Streamline patient throughput and reduce communication-related bottlenecks
• Improve patient safety and mitigate the risk of litigation
• Reduce costly medication errors that can lead to serious patient complications
• Standardize the quality and consistency of communication across languages

ProLingua is deployed through an on-demand software model making it immediately available to any computer with internet capability. This software enables the user to get new features immediately. As more languages are added, they will become instantly available. We host, maintain, and support ProLingua so your IT staff can focus their efforts and resources on other critical projects.

Thousands of Spoken Phrases – Communicate directly with LEP patients using a library of over 7,000 common questions and directives. Content is organized by workflow and designed to support simple, close-ended communication between staff and LEP patients. Eighty-five percent of the questions spoken through ProLingua are structured so as to elicit a “yes/no” response from the patient. The remainder make use of a graphical on-screen interface for clear, un-ambiguous patient interactions.

MedWizard – Improve patient comprehension and compliance with medication instructions by creating and delivering custom instructions for each patient. MedWizard empowers physicians with a quick, step-by-step instruction generator that speaks and prints instructions for the patient, reducing costly and dangerous medication errors.

MedDemo – Clearly convey complex medical instructions and procedural descriptions to increase patient understanding and compliance with instructions. The MedDemo module enables clinical staff to deliver compelling, consistent instructions to all patients through a library of audio/visual demonstrations.

MedPix – Improve patients' health literacy through a library of animated and static medical illustrations designed to stimulate or supplement verbal explanations. The MedPix module provides medical staff instant access to a comprehensive portfolio of dynamic images they can use to better explain complex anatomical topics to all patients.

Customized Discharge Instructions – Improve patient understanding and adherence to discharge instructions by providing them with discharge instructions unique to their condition. ProLingua enables clinical staff to generate patient-specific instructions, then speaks and prints the instructions in the patient's primary language to ensure comprehension.

Cultural Information – Give staff rapid access to basic cultural and religious reference material to help ensure that culturally-sensitive care is provided to all patients. Cultural Information provides guidance to staff addressing patient-specific needs relative to language, race, and religion.

Patient Initiator Cards – Empower every patient to initiate communication with hospital staff. Using disposable, laminated cards, LEP patients can alert the hospital staff that they're hungry, thirsty, or need to use the bathroom.