Many of our clients provide healthcare services to immigrant communities. As you can imagine, it can be difficult for them to balance the needs of their clients with limited budgets. We do what we can to help, including identifying information that has already been translated and is available to the public.

Today I found the Foreign Language Resources page at healthfinder.gov. You can access information from the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Health and Human Services. They provide information in Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese, to name just a few of the languages. If you don't find what you're looking for, give us a call so that we can help you.

Are U.S. pharmacies shortchanging their customers?  A multi-state study conducted by the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern found that more than 50% cannot give their Spanish-speaking customers translated medication instructions.

A Spanish-speaker reported having applied a cream on her baby eleven times a day when she should have applied it once a day.  She made the mistake because the Spanish word for eleven is "once".  What would have happened if the prescription was for an oral medication instead of a topical treatment?

One easy way pharmacies can help ensure patient safety is by having patient information brochures for many common medications translated into the languages their customers speak.  This will not only increase their customers' loyalty, it will also reduce the pharmacies' liability risk.

http://www.pandltranslations.com

Two drugstore chains have reached an agreement with the New York Attorney General's Office to translate prescription drug instructions into six languages.  The pharmacies will provide information in languages spoken by more than 1% of New York state residents: Chinese, French, Italian,Polish, Russian and Spanish. 

Do other states have similar requirements in effect?  Should translating prescription and OTC drug instructions be a federal requirement?

http://tinyurl.com/56stv8

http://www.pandltranslations.com