Recent research from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) suggests that long-term care residents who primarily speak languages other than English or French experience fewer emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths when their family doctor speaks their native language.
The study, published in BMJ Public Health, investigates the impact of language barriers in healthcare. It highlights that patients who encounter these barriers often face difficulties accessing services and receive care of lower quality and safety.
Focusing on a cohort of nearly half a million individuals receiving home care services in Ontario, Canada, from 2010 to 2018, researchers explored the concept of “language concordance.” This term refers to scenarios where patients received primary care from family physicians fluent in their native language.
Findings indicated that Allophones—individuals speaking languages other than English or French—benefited significantly from language-concordant care, reducing emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and mortality risks. Interestingly, the same was not valid for Francophones, whose outcomes were unaffected by whether their care was language-concordant or discordant.
Michael Reaume, a resident physician in internal medicine at the University of Manitoba, noted that the outcomes for Francophones likely remained stable because a substantial percentage (61%) of them already received care from French-speaking doctors. He suggested that this stability might indicate the effectiveness of policies like the French Language Services Act in ensuring access to language-appropriate care for the Franco-Ontarian population.
The study highlights that while the majority of home care recipients were Anglophone (80%), Francophones (2%) and Allophones (18%) represented a smaller portion of the cohort. Among Allophones, those who received care from doctors who spoke their language had fewer emergency department visits (53% versus 58%), hospitalizations (35% versus 38%), and deaths (14% versus 17%) compared to those receiving care from non-native language-speaking doctors.
Reaume emphasized the importance of systematically collecting data on patient and physician language preferences. Although physician language data is routinely collected in most parts of Canada, only three provinces and territories (Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) include patient language information on health cards. He argues that such data is crucial for matching patients with physicians who speak their preferred language and identifying those who might benefit from professional interpreter services when direct language concordance is impossible.
More information: Michael Reaume et al, Impact of patient–family physician language concordance on healthcare utilisation and mortality: a retrospective cohort study of home care recipients in Ontario, Canada, BMJ Public Health. DOI: 10.1136/bmjph-2023-000762
Journal information: BMJ Public Health Provided by Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences
