Bilingual health communicators:role delineation issues

Abstract

Managers of health care services are seeking new opportunities to improve communication with clients who havelimited English proficiency. An increase in bilingual health staff and the frequent use of their language skills in patientencounters provides opportunities but also brings with it confusion surrounding the role of interpreters and bilingualhealth staff. Secondary analysis of transcripts from 18 focus groups with monolingual and bilingual health staff has provided amethod of distinguishing the roles of these complementary communicators. This paper clarifies the roles of interpretersand bilingual communication facilitators using seven key features: scope of language, language proficiency, nature ofcommunication/interaction, nature of the contact and relationship, client responsibilities, and relationship with otherhealth care providers. We discuss differences in how bilingual health staff use language when providing care, andalternative types of interactions interpreters could adopt to extend their current role. A collaborative group ofcommunicators located within a health team is proposed, that is able to identify need and select the best communicatorfor the task.