ly as it should, especially for healthcare documents. Many ASCs use
commercial translation services to do this work, but we felt partnering
with ETSU in our own community was the right way to go.
Now when a Spanish-speaking patient comes in, the translator tells
the patient, "These are your papers to read, the consent form you
need to read and sign, here are papers about hand hygiene, infection
control, DVT, blood clots" and so on. We assemble a packet for them
to take home, and the translator makes sure they understand they
need to read all of that. It's double the paperwork for us — the
Spanish forms and the English translation for our staff — but that's
OK. The main thing is, it barely cost us a thing to make 1 in 5 of our
patients feel much less confused, overwhelmed or scared about their
upcoming surgical experience. And that's worth it, every time.
Lisa Rickman, RN
Mountain Empire Surgery Center
Johnson City, Tenn.
lrickman@uspi.com
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 1 7
• TALE OF 2 LANGUAGES English and Spanish versions of the Mountain Empire Surgery Center's Patient's Rights document.
Mountain
Empire
Surgery
Center