People with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) confront multiple obstacles when trying to access health care. They report decrease in satisfaction, quality of care and often poor outcomes. There is a strong sentiment among American institutions that immigrants should learn English and that language barriers should not be the problem of hospitals and staff. This project evaluated policies and procedures already in place at the clinic, benchmarked these against standards of federal and state regulations of practice, with the goal to improve operations for staff and improve access and standard of care for patients with LEP. The purpose of this capstone project was to answer the question: For the Hispanic patients of limited English proficiency at this clinic will improvements in communication lead to improvements in access to care? The primary intervention was to increase the availability of medical interpretation either face to face or through mechanical devises.
