Pharmacy Transitional Team: Evaluating the Value for Patients With Limited English Proficiency

Current care transition requires adaptation to address persistently worse outcomes for minoritized patients. For those who speak English, there are multiple spontaneous interactions with the healthcare team in addition to formal discharge teaching. Those with LEP have limited, scheduled time (where family may not be available) to ask questions and receive the bulk of discharging instructions in one setting. Even if meeting standards, there is variation in interpreter-services practice (e.g., video-based). We strive for standardization of implementation in most hospital processes rather than adaptation to meet the needs of individuals in order to achieve equitable clinical results. Hospital care quality improvement processes rarely include contextual narratives of the impact in historically marginalized individuals. Furthermore, clinical trials often fail to describe "success" from a patient or their caregivers' perspective. This study brings an innovative team with expertise in mixed methodology to focus on patient experience and equity to improve the value of transition processes from hospitals to SNFs.

Inclusion criteria

• Inpatient hospitalization at the University of Washington (UW) Medical Center

Designated as Spanish- speaking in the EPIC electronic medical record (EMR)

Designated as needing an interpreter in the EMR

Being discharged to any skilled nursing facility

Exclusion criteria

Patients who were unable to participate in a qualitative interview due to neurocognitive conditions such as dementia or schizophrenia were excluded from the study.

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