Advancing healthcare for non-English speaking families through ongoing research

Dr. Victor Do, a general pediatrician at the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, junior faculty member at the University of Alberta, and former Leong Centre Studentship Recipient, provides an update on his research with patients and families who use languages other than English for healthcare communication. He highlights the progress made in understanding the challenges faced by this group, including inconsistent interpreter use and its impact on trust and belonging within the healthcare system.

Since our last update a year ago, we have made significant progress in our research aimed at supporting patients and families who use languages other than English (LOE) for healthcare communication.  We have submitted a manuscript, currently under revision, based on our first phase of qualitative interviews at The Hospital for Sick Children. This phase explored the lived experiences of these families, highlighting issues such as inconsistent interpreter use and how the unique social factors affect trust and a sense of belonging within the healthcare system. Our findings were presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting and the Canadian Pediatric Society Annual Conference earlier this year, laying the groundwork for interventions to improve health outcomes and patient experience.

We are now nearing completion of a second phase of interviews with participants from McMaster Children’s Hospital, North York General, Trillium Health Partners, and Brampton Civic Hospital. We have completed the initial phase of an environmental scan to assess how pediatric inpatient units support patients with LOE. This scan revealed that over 50% of hospitals lack a routine process to identify patient interpreter requirements with less than one-third having formal methods to document these needs, leading to inconsistent communication of interpreter services. These issues contribute to disparities in health data for this group. We will extend our scan across Canada this fall. We have actively begun work in developing an instrument and workflow to better identify and document language needs. Our goal is to prioritize potential interventions for clinical trials and maintain a community-based participatory research approach.

I am so grateful for the early support from the Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Children in my residency training. This work has led me to pursue a PhD and career as a clinician-scientist focused on child health equity. I have recently moved back home to Edmonton where I am now a staff and junior faculty at the Stollery Children's Hospital and University of Alberta. I look forward to continuing my collaboration with the Centre and building our shared goals.