We couldn't agree more with your article "Left with a language barrier to health care," May 5. Providing health care to non-English speakers is a major challenge facing our health care system — and it's only going to get more challenging.
According to the U.S. census, more than 55 million people speak a language other than English at home. Navigating our complicated health care system is a challenge for anyone. For a non-English speaking person, the task is overwhelming — and can be deadly.
Non-fluency in English is associated with lower use of preventive services, higher utilization of expensive emergency room care, less ability to self-manage chronic diseases — and higher mortality, according to Health Affairs, a journal of health policy research.
Navigating the system will get even more complicated next year when certain consumers will be required to compare and contrast features and costs of various private health insurance policies offered through exchanges set up by federal health care reform.
But there is a solution. At Senior Whole Health, which cares for poor seniors, a case manager can help a patient and his or her family in their native language. Two out of three of our members do not speak English; our members speak more than 30 languages.
Providing health care to the non-English speaking population — and indeed everyone — will require a new mind-set about how to deliver and define health care.
Wayne Lowell
Chairman & CEO,
Senior Whole Health
Cambridge, Mass.
