For patients who speak a language other than English, translated discharge instructions are valued even more highly than discussions with clinicians before leaving the hospital.
That is the takeaway from a new study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Researchers asked patients who speak limited English what mattered to them when leaving the hospital.
Patients wanted both verbal and written communication in their preferred language. While speaking with a care team that shared their language was important, having translated instructions they could take home and revisit mattered even more.
The finding has important implications for hospitals. Patients may have productive conversations with their care team before discharge, but questions often arise later when they need to take medications, manage symptoms, or arrange follow-up care. Providing instructions in a patient’s preferred language gives patients and caregivers a reliable resource they can refer to at home when those questions arise.
The study found that the format of discharge instructions was the single biggest factor influencing participants' preferences, accounting for about 40% of their decision-making. Verbal communication with the care team accounted for about 35%.
That does not mean written instructions are more important than conversations with clinicians. Rather, it shows that both play a major role in how patients experience the transition home.
Participants wanted to receive discharge instructions in their preferred language, whether written or recorded, and they preferred discharge education from clinicians who spoke their language or communicated with the help of a professional interpreter.
The takeaway for healthcare organizations is clear: patients value communication they can understand before they leave the hospital and discharge information they can turn to later when questions arise at home.
For hospitals, the challenge is often operational. Discharge instructions may be finalized shortly before a patient leaves, leaving little time to arrange a translation through a separate process.
LanguageLine’s Epic Translation Integration helps address that challenge by bringing translation into the workflow that care teams already use.
A team member can request translation of eligible patient or discharge instructions within an After Visit Summary directly from Epic. Machine translation produces an initial draft, which a professional linguist reviews and edits. The completed translation is then returned to the patient’s record in Epic, where it can be accessed through the patient portal.
The service supports translation from English into 66 languages. Eligible requests are returned in 15 minutes on average during service hours.
Combined with a discharge conversation supported by a qualified interpreter or language-concordant clinician, translated instructions give patients and caregivers something they can revisit once they are home.
Learn more about LanguageLine’s Epic translation integration.