Improving the Quality of Care and the Health of Patients with Non-English Language Preference: The Experience of an Academic Department of Medicine in Developing a Multidisciplinary, Stakeholder-Engaged Program

Background and objectives: Health care institutions must provide equitable quality care for all patient populations. Despite this, data supports that hospitals struggle to do this for patients with non-English language preference (NELP). We describe the efforts of an academic department of medicine at a tertiary care hospital that serves a large number of patients with NELP. Methods: We describe our stakeholder-engaged approach in developing a strategy for caring for patients with NELP. Results: The lessons learned during the process of developing a departmental strategy for caring for patients with NELP are described. The paper ends with future directions of our work. Conclusion: Leveraging multidisciplinary stakeholder engagement, our department raised awareness of the challenges that the patients with NELP can face as they navigate health care, resulting in institutional support for building a program for improving quality of care for the population.