Can a telephone interpreter help me convey written information (patient education materials, consent forms, prescriptions, etc.)?
Telephone interpreters can provide limited “auditory translation” by listening to the health care provider read information aloud from a written source document, and then rendering it into another language. However, this is not advisable for a variety of reasons. Any legal document, such as a consent form, should be made available in a language the patient can understand, if possible, in writing, as should patient education materials. It is preferable to translate such materials in advance. Doing so will also provide significant cost savings to organizations in the long run, especially when compared to the cost of paying for telephone interpreters to produce this same information verbally, to multiple patients, over time. In some cases, it is not possible to translate information in advance. For example, when a provider writes a prescription, there may be no choice but to have the telephone interpreter explain to the provider how to write those words so that the patient will understand
Related Questions
- Can a pharmacist use PHI to fill a prescription that was telephoned in by a patient’s physician without the patient’s written consent if the patient is a new patient to the pharmacy?
- Can health care providers, use protected health information to set up appointments without the patient’s written consent?
- What are some tools to teach patient health literacy and create user-friendly education materials?
