To measure the impact of a policy change from use of telephonic and face‐to‐face interpreting to use of a video‐interpreting network on mergency epartment () care.
Data Sources/Study Setting
Observational study of care at two alifornia hospitals.
We compared tests ordered, time in the , and admission rates for nglish‐ and panish‐speaking patients presenting with chest pain and abdominal pain before and after the policy change.
Data Collection/Extraction Methods
Data were extracted from electronic medical and billing records.
Mean time in the , mean number of laboratory tests, radiology services, electrocardiograms, and echocardiograms, and rates of hospital admission for both language groups at both hospitals went down in the post‐video‐interpreting network period compared with the pre‐video‐interpreting network period. The percentage of patients leaving the against medical advice () increased in one hospital for both language groups; this increase was statistically significantly smaller in the panish‐language group compared with the nglish group (= .04).
The studied video‐interpreting network had minimal impact on health care outcomes in the .
