Overcoming language barriers in the healthcare sector

Find out how the members of Swiss Health Network for Equity promote understanding between staff and patients, patients and their families, making the healthcare system more accessible and improving the quality of healthcare.

Understanding and being understood are important foundations for quality medical care, for therapeutic success and for the compliance and safety of those being treated. If communication is difficult, this can lead to unnecessary, insufficient or inappropriate care and unnecessary costs. To overcome language barriers, the members of Swiss Health Network for Equity have developed various strategies, such as

• Recruiting healthcare professionals who speak the same language as patients,
• The use of professional interpretation services (on-site, by telephone or by video) that are intercultural and in sign language,
• The training and professionalisation of multilingual staff to work as in-house interpreters,
• The use of medical translation technologies,
• The use of plain-language texts and translated information material; and
• German language courses for staff.

In order to anchor these measures in the long term, guidelines and ongoing training offers have been developed to raise staff awareness of when and where these different strategies and resources need to be used to successfully overcome communication problems.

As a member of Swiss Health Network for Equity, you can benefit from existing experience, take part in joint pilot projects to test new products and technical possibilities and, for example, help to influence the political level by developing position papers and helping to overcome language barriers.