Errors of medical interpretation and their potential clinical consequences: a comparison of professional versus ad hoc versus no interpreters.

Study Objective: To compare interpreter errors and their potential consequences in encounters with professional versus ad hoc versus no interpreters.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional error analysis of audiotaped emergency department (ED) visits during 30 months in the 2 largest pediatric EDs in Massachusetts. Participants were Spanish-speaking limited-English-proficient patients, caregivers, and their interpreters.

The Latino Health Insurance Program: a pilot intervention for enrolling Latino families in health insurance programs, East Boston, Massachusetts, 2006-2007.

Background: Thirteen percent of Latinos in Massachusetts lack health insurance, the highest rate of any ethnic or racial group. Families without health insurance are more likely to be in poor or fair health, to lack a regular medical provider, and to not have visited a medical provider in the past year.

Context: The Latino Health Insurance Program is designed as a response both to the high rate of uninsurance among Latinos in Boston and to the multiple obstacles that keep Latino parents from applying for insurance for their families.

An evaluation of the linguistic and cultural validity of the Spanish language version of the children with special health care needs screener.

Objectives: The 2001 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN) used the CSHCN Screener, a 5-item survey based tool, to identify children with special health care needs. The prevalence of special health care needs for Hispanic children was lower than that reported for all other ethnic and racial groups, with the exception of Asian children. To better understand the reasons for the lower prevalence rate, this study examined variations in CSHCN prevalence for Hispanic children according to whether parents responded to the National Survey of CSHCN screening interview in Spanish or English.

Why are Latinos the most uninsured racial/ethnic group of US children? A community-based study of risk factors for and consequences of being an uninsured Latino child.

Background: Latinos continue to be the most uninsured racial/ethnic group of US children, but not enough is known about the risk factors for and consequences of not being insured in Latino children.

Objective: [corrected] The objective of this study was to identify the risk factors for and consequences of being uninsured in Latino children.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted of parents at urban, predominantly Latino community sites, including supermarkets, beauty salons, and laundromats.

A randomized, controlled trial of the effectiveness of community-based case management in insuring uninsured Latino children.

Background: Lack of health insurance adversely affects children's health. Eight million US children are uninsured, with Latinos being the racial/ethnic group at greatest risk for being uninsured. A randomized, controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of various public insurance strategies for insuring uninsured children has never been conducted.

How Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program can do a better job of insuring uninsured children: the perspectives of parents of uninsured Latino children.

Background: Eight and a half million US children are uninsured, despite the 1997 enactment of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) with $39 billion in funding, and Latinos continue to be the most uninsured racial/ ethnic group, with 24% (3 million) uninsured. Why SCHIP and Medicaid have not been more successful insuring uninsured children is unclear.

Objective: To identify reasons why parents are unable to insure uninsured Latino children in a state where all low-income children are eligible for insurance.

Keeping children with asthma out of hospitals: parents' and physicians' perspectives on how pediatric asthma hospitalizations can be prevented.

Background: A total of 196,000 hospitalizations occur each year among the 9 million US children who have been diagnosed with asthma. Not enough is known about how to prevent pediatric asthma hospitalizations.

Objectives: To identify the proportion of preventable pediatric asthma hospitalizations and how such hospitalizations might be prevented, according to parents and physicians of hospitalized children with asthma.

Limited english proficiency, primary language at home, and disparities in children's health care: how language barriers are measured matters.

Background: Approximately 3.5 million U.S.

Urban parents' knowledge and practices regarding managed care.

Background: Managed care is the dominant form of health insurance in the United States, covering millions of children. Little is known about whether inner-city parents adequately understand managed care's complex definitions and rules.

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine managed care knowledge and practices among inner-city parents.

Keeping children out of hospitals: parents' and physicians' perspectives on how pediatric hospitalizations for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions can be avoided.

Background: Avoidable hospitalization conditions (AHCs) are hospitalizations that potentially can be avoided with timely, appropriate outpatient care. The specific reasons for avoidability, and parents and physicians' perspectives on the proportion of actually avoidable pediatric AHCs, have not been examined adequately.

Objectives: To identify how pediatric hospitalizations might be avoided, and to determine the proportion of avoidable AHCs according to parents and physicians of hospitalized children.

Errors in medical interpretation and their potential clinical consequences in pediatric encounters.

Background: About 19 million people in the United States are limited in English proficiency, but little is known about the frequency and potential clinical consequences of errors in medical interpretation.

Objectives: To determine the frequency, categories, and potential clinical consequences of errors in medical interpretation.

Methods: During a 7-month period, we audiotaped and transcribed pediatric encounters in a hospital outpatient clinic in which a Spanish interpreter was used.