Study Highlights Benefits of Trained Medical Interpreters

Trained medical interpreters make half as many clinically significant interpreting errors as "ad hoc interpreters," such as family members, according to a study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. According to the study, professionally trained interpreters with at least 100 hours of training had a 2% proportion of errors with clinical significance, compared with 12% for professional interpreters with fewer than 100 hours of training and 22% for ad hoc interpreters.

• "Hospitals Struggle To Provide Interpreters for Patients Who Don't Speak English" (Andrews, Kaiser Health News/Washington Post, 5/21).