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Too Little Information: Accessibility of Information About Language Services on Hospital Websites

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Abstract

Hospital websites are an important resource to patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) seeking information about a facility’s language assistance services. We sought to identify the types of such services described on hospital websites in a diverse state and compare them by hospital characteristics. Washington State acute care hospital websites were systematically reviewed in February 2018 for translated content and information about language assistance services. Hospital characteristics included annual admissions and revenue, bed size and the proportion of populations with LEP in the hospital’s county. Of 93 hospitals, 10.8% provided translated websites. Interpreter services were mentioned on 81.7% of websites; access required navigation through 1–4 English webpages. Larger bed-size, higher revenue, and more admissions were positively associated with providing language services information (p < 0.01), whereas county-level population with LEP was not (p = 0.17). Many hospital websites are not translated or lack easily accessible information about language assistance services and consequently may not be a useful resource to patients with LEP.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to acknowledge Kylie Glover for her assistance with data collection for this study. This project was funded in part by a Grant from the Health Equity Research Center, a strategic research initiative of Washington State University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Nursing, Washington State University, 412 E. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA, 99201, USA

    Janessa M. Graves & Lilian Nguyen

  2. Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center (HIPRC), Seattle, WA, USA

    Janessa M. Graves, Megan Moore & Monica S. Vavilala

  3. Language Access Research for Community Health (LARCH) Coalition, Seattle, WA, USA

    Janessa M. Graves, Megan Moore, Carmen Gonzalez, Joana Ramos & Monica S. Vavilala

  4. School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Megan Moore

  5. Department of Communication, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Carmen Gonzalez

  6. Washington State Coalition for Language Access (WASCLA), Seattle, WA, USA

    Joana Ramos

  7. Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Monica S. Vavilala

  8. Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Monica S. Vavilala

Authors
  1. Janessa M. Graves
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  2. Megan Moore
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  3. Carmen Gonzalez
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  5. Lilian Nguyen
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  6. Monica S. Vavilala
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Correspondence to Janessa M. Graves.

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Graves, J.M., Moore, M., Gonzalez, C. et al. Too Little Information: Accessibility of Information About Language Services on Hospital Websites. J Immigrant Minority Health 22, 433–438 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-020-00978-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-020-00978-8

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