Apply the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) (https://thinkculturalhealth.hhs.gov/clas) in Health and Health Care. These standards, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, serve as best practice framework to advance health equity, improve quality of care, and eliminate health care disparities by ensuring services are respectful of and responsive to diverse cultural health beliefs and preferred languages.
Institutions should continue to implement or strengthen internal policies that require the continued provision of critical health documents, communications, and render services in patients’ preferred languages. This includes, but is not limited to, consent forms, discharge instructions, medication labels, and educational materials. This will ensure full comprehension, ensure patient safety, improve outcomes, and build trust.
Consider continuing to build language access capacity by hiring trained and certified interpreters and translators, offering basic ESL courses to staff and their families, and hosting or supporting community organizations that provide free or low-cost English language classes.