Cambridge Health Alliance : News

Harvard Medical School Teaching Affiliate

For Patients

For Providers

Academics

Careers

Services

Locations

How to Give

Join Our Media mailing list

Media Opportunity Consent Form

NEWS FROM CAMBRIDGE HEALTH ALLIANCE

Cambridge Health Alliance is One of Ten Sites in the Nation Tapped to Help Hospitals Communicate Better with Patients of Limited English Proficiency

Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Medford, Revere, Somerville, Winthrop, MA…Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) has been selected as one of 10 hospitals nationwide to participate in Speaking Together: National Language Services Network, a high-level national learning collaborative aimed at helping to develop tested language services programs that provide more effective and timely communications to patients with limited English proficiency (LEP). Speaking Together is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and administered by the George Washington University's School of Public Health and Health Services.

Research shows that when patients have difficulty communicating with their healthcare providers, they are far less likely to understand their conditions, adequately communicate symptoms, or adhere to treatment recommendations. While all hospitals nationwide are legally required to provide language services to patients who speak limited English, there are no federal guidelines on the most effective ways to communicate with these patients. In order to best serve its diverse patient population, CHA has always fostered an atmosphere of cultural competence.

CHA will receive a grant of up to $60,000, as well as technical assistance and training using quality improvement measures developed by the George Washington University Department of Health Policy.

The resources will serve to strengthen CHA's position as a leader in the provision of interpreter services. Proven best practices learned from CHA and other Speaking Together partners will be shared with health professionals across the nation, giving hospitals with linguistically diverse patients concrete and tested examples of effective language services programs and interventions that they can adopt.

"Just as any patient expects care from a trained, qualified health care professional, a patient with limited English proficiency should expect that timely interpreter services will be provided by professionals who are specially trained in interpreting health and medical information," said Marsha Regenstein, PhD, MCP, associate professor in the department of Health Policy at George Washington University and director of the Speaking Together National Program Office.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. Information about Speaking Together is available at www.speakingtogether.org.

Cambridge Health Alliance is a regional healthcare system with three hospitals and more than twenty primary care practices in Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston's metro-North communities. As a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Health Alliance offers medical residency/training programs and undergraduate learning experiences in hospital and community settings. Cambridge Health Alliance also includes the Cambridge Public Health Department, CHA Physicians Organization (CHAPO), and Network Health, a managed Medicaid plan.