The Language of Health

Care
Caroline Savage
78%
Of the global
population speak the
top 85 languages.

● This leaves the remaining 5,000

languages to be spoken by 22% of
the global population.

● The amount of languages with

inadequate number is adherents
creates massive language barriers
worldwide.
 Patient/Doctor Communication
Is there really a NEED for communication in health care?

The need for proper communication in a physician setting lies in the

proper collection of symptoms to get a proper diagnosis of the patients
needs.

According to the NCBI which is the National Center for Biotechnology Information stated that..

“the core of medical care is information management based. This includes relaying correct information to one
being treated as well as the patient fully understands in their language what is going on with their body.”

Ways of Communicating With a Patient

-Oral Communication
-Written Communication
The collection of accurate symptoms results in a proper and specific
diagnosis. Looking at this we see the need for accurate communication
in the medical field.
100,000 Medical Language
Different word
combination, ❖ The language barrier created is unintentional. This is a unique language
symbols, and that includes prefixes, suffixes and root words.
abbreviations.

For Instance:

Her moving image of her heart were

“Your echocardiogram was
perfectly normal, the amount of blood
unremarkable; the ejection
that her heart pumps out during every
fraction was 68%. There was no
beat was a normal 68 percent. Also it
LVH. All of your laboratory tests
showed that her left ventricle in her
were negative. I’ll send a note to
heart were normal as was as her
your doctor.”
normal lab results.
Is this miscommunication
intentional?
 Immigrant Medical Treatment in Host Country

A primary problem in medical miscommunication lies in immigrants coming into a

country.
❖ Federal law was passed to protect the treatment of non-english speaking
patients in the United States, despite the efforts more than half of the
people who still need translators do not receive care.
 Telemedicine
● While it offers temporary
solutions, the personal
connection is not present in
telemedicine.
● Russia has successfully
produced telemedicine that seem
to work.
● Once symptoms and side effects
have been communicated the
system of telemedicine falls
short.

“If you just have a simple tablet that asks, do you have pain or not, that's going to
give people a false sense of security,You're going to end up putting people at risk.”
Dr.Glenn Flores
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