Are You Ready for the Challenges of Tomorrow?
By: Mary Longe, Director, AHA Solutions, Inc.
When a candidate for ambulatory care with Limited English Proficiency walks in to an emergency department because he was unable to make an appointment over the phone, capacity is threatened. When a patient leaves an acute or an ambulatory setting not understanding discharge instructions, her likelihood for readmission or a preventable admission is heightened and the organization is in financial risk. When a hearing challenged patient who speaks a language other than English has no one to interpret for them an individual’s life may be at risk as well as the organization’s safety and reputation.
Real-life scenarios like these require organizations to provide appropriate communication from a care perspective and appropriate language services from an operational perspective. Offering language services is critical to care, quality, efficiency and the organization’s bottom line. It is an important element in an organization for the future of health care delivery.
So what’s your road map for transforming your organization to meet of today’s healthcare needs?
What’s clear is the increase in pressure for quality care and efficiencies across health care organizations is not stopping. Each organization must decide how they will participate in the future of the healthcare delivery system.
Whether you can make good decisions for the direction of your future depends on three things. No matter if it’s a transformation in care, business, or leadership practices, quality decisions depend on how well your organization understands your current situation, whether your vision guides you to where your organization intends to go, and what elements you must change to get you there.
The landscape of healthcare is changing fast and so are many communities. You can find information on this website and others about how hospitals need language services to address the changing demographics. Not long ago, language services often were the domain of the patient advocate. Now it’s about the care, quality, efficiency, and financial responsibility of the hospital. Is your organization ready to handle these new challenges in the future?
What do you think? Leave us a comment in the section below.
By:Mary Longe
Director, AHA Solutions, Inc.
An American Hospital Association Company
mlonge@aha.org
