Patients who need an interpreter wait longer to be evaluated by a physician in the emergency department, and only 68% of those who needed an interpreter were correctly identified, a recent study found.
The study, published in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, analyzed 47,038 encounters at two affiliated emergency departments with similar triage processes between May and October 2024. Researchers analyzed the time to physician self-assignment (TTPS) for patients who required an interpreter against those who did not. Of patients, 6.9% required an interpreter.
Researchers found a 27% increase in TTPS among patients who had a documented need for an interpreter, amounting to a weighted median of 7.4 minutes, compared to 5.8 minutes.
Providers correctly identified patients needing an interpreter only 68% of the time. Researchers also found that 31.9% of patients thought to need an interpreter did not require one.
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