A recent story by OPB explained how the Oregon and Washington Health Exchanges are struggling to translate their materials correctly in preparation for open enrollment. Luckily, the exchanges don’t go live until October, so they have time to work the bugs out. We applaud them for getting a head start, as well as getting feedback on their translations.

Wherever you are at in the process, we’ve got some tips to help you get started on the right path:

• Assess the situation: Identify the language, culture, ethnicity, and literacy levels of the groups whose needs you must address in your market.
• Give yourself plenty of time: Keep in mind that it takes time to get your documents print-ready, translated and reviewed. Build plenty of time in your plan for each phase.
• Find a good partner: Your choice of an LSP is critical to the success of your translation projects. Ideally, you want more than just a provider of translation services; you want a language services partner you can rely on.
• Maximize your healthcare translation budget: By working with an LSP skilled with translation memory and industry tools, you can recycle previous translations and save 20-50%.
• Streamline the review process: By using professionally created and maintained translation glossaries and style guides, you can reduce time spent in the review and revision process by as much as 50%.

Still feeling a little lost? We can help. Read our ANOC-EOC data sheet to learn about VIA’s translation solutions and how your plan can save time and money in your open enrollment translation process.

I recently joined the Healthcare marketing network group on LinkedIn and noticed that one of the most popular discussions is “One Big Reason Health Exchanges May Fail” which was started by Andrew Atkin, CEO, Planet H. Mr. Atkin makes some fantastic points and I agree that building a roadmap will greatly improve the customer experience for any state’s exchange program. That said, I think there’s one key element that should be added: language and cultural barriers.

Mr. Atkin notes that many of the 12 million new customers and 11 million small businesses that will flood the insurance market in 2014 “be less educated and more racially diverse.” In addition, he calls out a few great questions that healthcare marketers need to be thinking about, such as “How do you reach these customers?” But one question he doesn’t ask is “How do we communicate with the subset of these customers who don’t speak English as their first language?”

Research shows that limited-English-proficient (LEP) and minority populations are more likely than their white counterparts to have chronic disease, lack health insurance, and have difficulties communicating with healthcare providers, even if qualified as highly literate in their primary language. Even for those who speak English as a second language, comprehension of new vocabulary or subject matter can be quite low. This is especially true when faced with difficult medical terminology.

Bridging the language gap is key to ensuring your culturally diverse communities enjoy equal access to healthcare. True understanding happens when they can internalize the material in their native language. Therefore, I would recommend adding an 8^th step to the roadmap: Tailor communication to the targeted cultures through translation and localization. Further, I would expand Mr. Atkins second big idea to say that trusted translators should be included in the close marketing partnerships with insurers, navigators and exchanges in order to truly “power the Customer Experience Road Map.”

To find out more about how to create readable health materials in any language, read our brief The Growing Challenges of Health Literacy.

Earlier this week Health and Human Services (HHS) released the enhanced National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) in Health and Health Care. This is meant to be a blueprint to guide individuals and organizations in implementing culturally and linguistically appropriate services in order to help advance better health and health care in the United States. You can read the press release here.

According to the www.ThinkCulturalHealth.hhs.gov website:

Health inequities in our nation are well documented, and the provision of culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) is one strategy to help eliminate health inequities. By tailoring services to an individual’s culture and language preference, health professionals can help bring about positive health outcomes for diverse populations.

We couldn’t agree more. At VIA we believe that bridging the language gap is key to ensuring culturally diverse communities enjoy equal access to healthcare. That said, we realize that reaching out to an ever-expanding range of cultures in your community and finding solutions to best meet the growing needs for your limited English proficiency (LEP) populations is challenging and complex. But, we’re here to help. From websites to patient education, VIA tailors each communication to the targeted culture.

As dedicated healthcare specialists, we serve over 400 healthcare clients globally. We’ve built translation capabilities in over 125 languages and a hand-selected network of over 1,000 professional healthcare-specific linguists.

In addition, to help you with this particular aspect of health equity, we have also created a guide with tips about how to keep current with language access mandates while still providing culturally and linguistically meaningful healthcare communications to your members and community.