Regional EuroTimes
Date Posted 26/10/2009
Language barriers causing glaucoma patients to miss follow-up appointments
A survey carried out at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) has shown that language and interpreter issues are causing glaucoma patients to skip appointments with their ophthalmologists.
"Many eye care professionals assume these patients skip appointments becaud of financial problems, insurance issues, or lack of understanding of the need for follow up care,@ said Dr Bradford W Lee, MD, Stanford and University of California, San Francisco, Department of Ophthalmology.
"Our results show other factors are more important and that barriers vary somewhat with patient ethnicity."
The most vexing issues, according to the findings presented at the AAO-PAAO joint meeting in San Francisco, were long clinic wait times and appointment scheduling difficulties.
Even though SFGH provides medical interpreting services, 37 per cent of Latino-ethnicity and 32 per cent of Asian-ethnicity patients from the 152 patients surveyed cited language and interpreter issues as significant barriers.
The researchers say new strategies to streamline appointment procedures for non-English speaking patients and resolving wait time and interpreter issues should be the top priorities for SFGH and similar glaucoma clinics.
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