Common models are listed below. Trying to provide health care across a language barrier with no language assistance practically guarantees poor quality care, which will end up costing the health care system dearly in the long run. In addition, failure to provide language assistance could constitute a violation of the patient's civil rights and might possibly trigger a response from the Office for Civil Rights . Many institutions are currently depending on chance interpreters to provide language assistance. A chance interpreter could be a family member, a friend, or an allegedly bilingual support staff person, such as a technician, receptionist or cafeteria worker.
Family members are notoriously bad interpreters.
Though they have an important role to play in supporting the patient, that role is in direct conflict with the role of an interpreter. Family members routinely edit, add, change the message, and end up taking control of the interaction between patient and provider instead of facilitating it. Bilingual Support Staff Untrained, unscreened, supposedly bilingual support staff are not much better. They also tend to edit, add to and change the message. In addition, unless a person's command of both English and the non-English language are tested, it may be discovered that this person does not have the language skills necessary to interpret well.