Deliverhealth Launches Its New Mobile Language Access Capability to Help Clinicians, Physicians Improve Care Quality to a Growing Segment of Non-english Speaking Patients

DeliverHealth, a global provider of technology-enabled solutions for hospitals, health systems and group practices, announced the official unveiling of its Language Access workflow tool, designed to improve existing connections between physicians and limited English proficient (LEP) patients, enhance compliance and reimbursement, and boost both provider and patient satisfaction.

To help guide this launch and future product enhancements, DeliverHealth has entered a joint research initiative with the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, The Media and Innovation Lab, to further explore the role that novel technology has in creating more optimal health outcomes among LEP populations.

“You cannot disconnect quality care from the way you communicate with your patients — especially those who have limited ability in reading, writing, speaking and understanding English,” said Michael Clark, CEO of DeliverHealth. “We are committed to giving clinicians and physicians a mobile-first way to improve the way they deliver care with a solution that clearly demonstrates a commitment to health equity while also removing one more frustrating, costly and burnout-inducing burden providers confront daily.”

Research shows that LEP patients face numerous disparities when receiving healthcare, including more frequent and longer emergency department and hospital visits, higher hospital readmission rates, and a greater likelihood of experiencing adverse events that cause physical harm. Additionally, LEP patients are less likely to receive preventative screenings, seek primary care services, or follow up with physician recommendations. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated disparities in communication, resulting in a disproportionately large percentage of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths among LEP individuals.

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“We believe that, with the right focus, technology and innovation can reduce and eliminate disparities in healthcare access, delivery, and quality that plague underserved and marginalized communities,” explains Dr. Azizi Seixas, Founding Director of the Media and Innovation Laboratory. “By quantifying the impact of clinician/patient communication as a foundational component of optimized patient care, we have the potential to fundamentally alter care practices to benefit the communities in need.”

Physicians and care teams can use Language Access with their existing interpretation services on their mobile devices and/or expand access to third-party services, making both more accessible. Interpreters can be added in 250 languages, either across the globe or from within specific communities in which their LEP patients live.

Language Access, one of the newest mobile capabilities introduced within the DeliverHealth Platform, integrates within the electronic health record (EHR) to give clinicians, physicians and care teams the language interpreter tool they need to improve care and outcomes for the country’s more than 25 million U.S. LEP patients. An ever-growing challenge, the number of limited English proficient persons will increase by 67 million by 2050 to an estimated 19% of US residents, studies show.

Language Access not only improves the quality of care for patients, but also helps providers by:

• Reducing time spent finding interpreters by accessing multiple certified vendors and in-house staff with just one tap of a button.
• Providing reporting that can simplify reimbursement, proving that interpretation services were used appropriately.
• Capturing and ensuring timely, accurate reimbursement by tracking language services and session time, which is required for code selection.
• Creating a unified workflow for in-house and outsourced interpreters improving utilization of bilingual staff, and bringing the least costly, most efficient and effective third-party services to the forefront.
• Allowing physicians to stay in the same workflow that is currently being used for documentation and scribing, which leads to time and cost savings and a more frictionless, less stressful encounter.
• Tracking rich metadata such as call duration, completion status, and interpreter utilization to drive improvements wherever reimbursement is not available.

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Additionally, because a patient’s information, including the file of the provider interaction, is stored within an organization’s EHR, administrators will soon have the ability to access the audio files, review for quality, and leverage data to improve the care experience.

The DeliverHealth Platform, with its mobile-focused capabilities, introduces new ways of working in an increasingly connected, digital world. The platform includes tools for easy access to a physician’s schedule, secure messaging, dictation, speech recognition, scribing, and more. It also provides a white-labeled digital front door app that earlier this year received across-the-board A+ ratings from KLAS Research.

“We are creating an ecosystem of capabilities within the DeliverHealth Platform to give clinicians and physicians convenient, simple ways to document, code, and communicate with patients in the patient’s preferred way,” said Jason Martin, Chief Product Officer, Provider Solutions at DeliverHealth. “We believe a physician’s burden can be lessened through better digital patient experiences, reducing re-work and paperwork, and the overall improving of timely digital communications.”

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