Are Trained Medical Interpreters Worth the Cost? A Review of the Current Literature on Cost and Cost-Effectiveness

The treatment of migrants with limited language proficiency poses major challenges to health care professionals. The use of professional interpreters in medical settings is still limited, which is, among other reasons, due to cost concerns. We performed a literature search in PubMed and included 11...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of immigrant and minority health 2020-02, Vol.22 (1), p.175-181
Main Authors: Brandl, Eva J., Schreiter, Stefanie, Schouler-Ocak, Meryam
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Comparative Law
Competence
Cost analysis
Cost control
Costs
Expenditures
Health care
Health care expenditures
Health services
International & Foreign Law
Interpreters
Language
Language proficiency
Literature reviews
Medical personnel
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Migrants
Noncitizens
Patients
Private International Law
Public Health
Review Article
Savings
Sociology
Treatment outcomes
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Summary:The treatment of migrants with limited language proficiency poses major challenges to health care professionals. The use of professional interpreters in medical settings is still limited, which is, among other reasons, due to cost concerns. We performed a literature search in PubMed and included 11 articles examining cost and cost-effectiveness of using professional interpreters. Despite mixed findings, most studies indicated improvement of medical care and the investigated treatment outcome at limited additional cost or cost-savings. The interpretation of findings is limited by the sparsity of available studies, mixed settings as well as different outcome parameters. Therefore, more research on the benefits of using professional interpreters is required. Nonetheless, the available studies indicate a benefit for both patients and health care systems at very limited cost as compared to other expenditures in health care, supporting the call for a more widespread use of professional interpreters with scientific evaluation.
ISSN:1557-1912
1557-1920
DOI:10.1007/s10903-019-00915-4