Attention Multilingual Employees: Your Language Skills Can Help Patient Families in New System-Wide ‘Zero Harm In Any Language’ Initiative

Are you good at speaking a language other than English? Would you like to be tested and approved to communicate with patient families who visit Cook Children's for health care?

The Health Equity and Language Services teams have joined forces to cover the testing costs for the first 100 staff members who want to be language tested. If you're interested, please talk to your manager or supervisor first.

They can then email Paige Brown, the Health Equity Integration Coordinator, to start the process. Testing requests must be emailed by Aug. 25, and testing needs to be completed by Sept. 15. The Language Services team will arrange the test with an approved company, and the cost will be taken care of by Health Equity.

This program aims to enhance language services for patient families. These services are provided for free to ensure that communication with healthcare providers and other staff members is accurate and complete. This work helps improve the patient and family experience, as when patients can speak in their own language, it helps them feel safe, understood, and reduces the chances of misunderstandings and supports our "Zero Harm" efforts.

This initiative aligns with Joint Commission's expanded health equity standards, which have been given National Patient Safety Goal status, and is part of a system-wide effort called "Zero Harm In Any Language," which aims to make sure that patient families who speak a language other than English have access to the same level of care, greatly reducing the risk of harm.

The tests are conducted over the phone and computer by a trusted company. They measure how well people can speak and understand the target language and whether they can interpret between English and the target language for two speakers.

Amy Trejo, a Research Project Coordinator, went through the language testing process because she wanted to be able to talk to patient families and get their consent to participate in research studies.

"The whole process is really easy. I spent some time practicing medical words in Spanish and getting familiar with the test format," she said. "Passing the language test at Cook Children's shows that I have the skills to give patients all the information they need about the study."

Anu Partap, MD, MPH, Physician Director of Health Equity Integration, plans to get tested in Hindi. She learned Hindi from her grandmother, who lived with her family when she was growing up.

"I used to think I was fluent until a few years ago when my Hindi wasn't good enough to help a family at the clinic. Later, I was asked to do story time in Hindi at Cook Children's, but I declined because I wasn't sure if I could do it," she said. “Getting tested will help me feel more prepared if I'm asked again. I remember how difficult it was for my grandmother when nobody understood her in medical settings. I hope I can make a family feel like part of our Cook Children's family in this small way.”