#healthcare institutions

[metausa23]

Introduction to Medical Interpretation Services

In the dynamic landscape of healthcare, effective communication is paramount. However, linguistic diversity among patient populations presents a significant challenge. Medical interpretation services play a crucial role in bridging this communication gap, ensuring that patients receive the care they need regardless of language barriers.

The Growing Need for Medical Interpretation Services

As communities become increasingly diverse, healthcare providers face a growing demand for language support. Legal requirements mandate that healthcare organizations provide interpretation services to limited English proficient (LEP) patients. Failure to do so not only compromises patient care but also puts providers at risk of legal repercussions.

Challenges in Medical Interpretation

Language barriers extend beyond simple translation; they encompass cultural nuances, literacy levels, and dialectal variations. These complexities make effective communication challenging and underscore the need for qualified medical interpreters who can navigate these nuances with sensitivity and accuracy.

Benefits of Utilizing Professional Medical Interpreters

When healthcare providers enlist theservices of professional interpreters, they can expect improved patient outcomes and satisfaction. Clear communication leads to accurate diagnosis and treatment, reducing the likelihood of medical errors and enhancing overall quality of care.

Types of Medical Interpretation Services

Medical interpretation services come in various forms to accommodate the diverse needs of patients and providers. On-site interpretation involves an interpreter physically present during appointments, while remote interpretation utilizes technology to connect providers and patients virtually.

Technological Advancements in Medical Interpretation

Advancements in telemedicine and language interpretation software have revolutionized the delivery of interpretation services. Video interpretation conferencing platforms allow for real-time communication between patients and interpreters, regardless of geographic location, facilitating access to care for remote and underserved populations.

Training and Qualifications for Medical Interpreters

Effective interpretation requires more than language proficiency; interpreters must also possess a deep understanding of medical terminology and ethics. Training programs and certification processes help ensure that interpreters meet these standards, ultimately enhancing the quality and reliability of interpretation services.

Integration of Interpretation Services in Healthcare Settings

Successful integration of interpretation services into healthcare settings requires collaboration between providers and interpreters. By incorporating interpretation into electronic health records (EHRs) and care workflows, healthcare organizations can streamline communication processes and improve efficiency.

Cost Considerations and Funding Sources

While the benefits of medical interpretation services are clear, financial considerations can pose challenges for healthcare organizations. However, various funding sources, including government grants and reimbursements, are available to support language access initiatives and offset implementation costs.

Ensuring Quality and Accuracy in Interpretation Services

Quality assurance measures, such as interpreter training and proficiency assessments, are essential for maintaining the integrity of interpretation services. Continuous professional development ensures that interpreters stay abreast of medical advancements and best practices in language interpretation.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Providers must adhere to legal and ethical guidelines to protect patient confidentiality and privacy. Compliance with regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is essential to safeguard patient information and maintain trust between providers and patients.

Case Studies: Successful Implementation of Medical Interpretation Services

Numerous healthcare institutions have demonstrated the positive impact of effective interpretation services on patient outcomes. By sharing these success stories, providers can gain insight into best practices and strategies for integrating interpretation into their own practices.

Future Trends in Medical Interpretation

As technology continues to advance, the future of medical interpretation holds exciting possibilities. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize language interpretation, offering real-time translation services that are accurate, efficient, and accessible to all.

Conclusion

In conclusion, medical interpretation services play a vital role in ensuring equitable access to healthcare for all patients, regardless of language or cultural background. By prioritizing language access and investing in professional interpretation services, healthcare providers can improve patient outcomes, enhance satisfaction, and uphold their commitment to delivering quality care

[reasonsforhope]

"The Biden Administration last week [early December, 2023] announced it would be seizing patents for drugs and drug manufacturing procedures developed using government money.

A draft of the new law, seen by Reuters, said that the government will consider various factors including whether a medical situation is leading to increased prices of the drug at any given time, or whether only a small section of Americans can afford it.

The new executive order is the first exercise in what is called “march-in-rights” which allows relevant government agencies to redistribute patents if they were generated under government funding. The NIH has long maintained march-in-rights, but previous directors have been unwilling to use them, fearing consequences.

“We’ll make it clear that when drug companies won’t sell taxpayer funded drugs at reasonable prices, we will be prepared to allow other companies to provide those drugs for less,” White House adviser Lael Brainard said on a press call.

But just how much taxpayer money is going toward funding drugs? A research paper from the Insitute for New Economic Thought showed that “NIH funding contributed to research associated with every new drug approved from 2010-2019, totaling $230 billion.”

The authors of the paper continue, writing “NIH funding also produced 22 thousand patents, which provided marketing exclusivity for 27 (8.6%) of the drugs approved [between] 2010-2019.”

How we do drug discovery and production in America has a number of fundamental flaws that have created problems in the health service industry.

It costs billions of dollars and sometimes as many as 5 to 10 years to bring a drug to market in the US, which means that only companies with massive financial muscle can do so with any regularity, and that smaller, more innovative companies can’t compete with these pharma giants.

This also means that if a company can’t recoup that loss, a single failed drug can result in massive disruptions to business. To protect themselves, pharmaceutical companies establish piles of patents on drugs and drug manufacturing procedures. Especially if the drug in question treats a rare or obscure disease, these patents essentially ensure the company has monoselective pricing regimes.

However, if a company can convince the NIH that a particular drug should be considered a public health priority, they can be almost entirely funded by the government, as the research paper showed.

Some market participants, in this case the famous billionaire investor Mark Cuban, have attempted to remedy the issue of drug costs in America by manufacturing generic versions of patented drugs sold for common diseases."

-via Good News Network, December 11, 2023

[1stalternativehealthcarestaff]

Care facilities, such as hospitals and nursing homes, may occasionally find themselves in need of additional nursing staff due to a sudden influx of patients or a shortage of regular staff members. In such cases, these facilities may choose to open temporary nursing positions to fill the gap. These temporary positions typically offer flexible schedules and short-term contracts, making them an attractive option for both nurses and care facilities.

[balkanradfem]

I've managed to curate my small misogyny-free space both online and in real life, and now I'm no longer used to misogyny, it's no longer normal to me. So when I accidentally glimpse it, I'm not desensitized to it, I'm always shocked and unbelieving.

If I notice a m*n talking about a woman like she's 'just some ***' I'm immediately aware that this is in fact a demonic creature who needs to be burned. If I see anyone using a slur against women or pretending women are at fault for any of the world's issues, the hair on my neck stands up at the unbelievable amount of hatred.

Anyone implying that women should be in any way controlled, punished, forced to do anything against their will or dedicate their lives to anyone but themselves, is preposterous and villainous to me, I'm at loss that someone could even think that way about a half of the human population who are creators and administrators of life.

I know I am in a bubble, but it feels different knowing deeply in your heart that all of this is not normal, that casual or normalized hatred against women is absolutely insane, that it's sharp and painful and dehumanizing at every turn. It's insane to realize that women just have to live like this, believing all of that is normal, that I once lived like this, wondering what was wrong with me and why I couldn't just be what everyone was expecting me to.

I think still, if I can make a small space without this hate present in it, without anyone or anything implying we should be anything but free, anything but full complete human beings with absolute control over our lives, then we can strengthen and grow these spaces, and get more women in, have more women experience what life is like when hatred is removed. There is hope for women.

[chronic-high-achiever]

So uh…

Anyone gonna acknowledge that Trump is making an executive disorder to declassify non-binary and other genders, therefore only leaving male and female?

SO wild to me how we used to think America was this superpower first world country but like… it’s starting to smell a bit dictatorship-core idk

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita says that abortion reports aren’t medical records, and that they should be available to the public in the same way that death certificates are. While Rokita pushes for public reports, New Hampshire lawmakers are fighting over a Republican bill to collect and publish abortion data, and U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville has introduced a bill that would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to collect and provide data on the abortions performed at its facilities. Just last week, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed legislation that would have required abortion providers to ask patients invasive and detailed questions about why they were getting abortions, and provide those answers in a report to the state.   All of these moves are part of a broader strategy that weaponizes abortion data to stigmatize patients and to prosecute providers. And while most states have some kind of abortion reporting law, legislators are increasingly trying to expand the scope of the data, and use it to dismantle women’s privacy.

Rokita’s ‘advisory opinion’, for example, argues that abortion data collected by the state isn’t private medical information and that in order to prosecute abortion providers, he needs detailed reports to be public. In the past, the state has issued reports on each individual abortion. But as a result of Indiana’s ban, there are only a handful of abortions being performed in the state. As such, the Department of Health decided to release aggregate reports to protect patient confidentiality, noting that individual reports could be “reverse engineered to identify patients—especially in smaller communities.” Rokita—best known for his harassment campaign against Dr. Caitlin Bernard, the abortion provider who treated a 10-year-old rape victim—is furious over the change. He says the only way he can arrest and prosecute people is if he gets tips from third parties, presumably anti-abortion groups that scour the abortion reports for alleged wrongdoing. He wants the state to either restore public individual reports, or to allow his office to go after abortion providers without a complaint by a third party. (Meaning, he could pursue investigations against doctors and hospitals without cause.)

Most troubling, though, is his insistence that women’s private abortion information isn’t private at all. Even though individual reports could be used to identify patients, Rokita claims that the terminated pregnancy reports [TPRs] aren’t medical records, and that they “do not belong to the patient.” [...] As I flagged last month, abortion reporting is becoming more and more important to anti-choice lawmakers and groups. Project 2025 includes an entire section on abortion reporting, for example, and major anti-abortion organizations like the Charlotte Lozier Institute and Americans United for Life want to mandate more detailed reports.

[...]  As is the case with funding for crisis pregnancy centers and legislation about ‘prenatal counseling’ or ‘perinatal hospice care’, Republicans are advancing abortion reporting mandates under the guise of protecting women. And in a moment when voters are furious over abortion bans, anti-choice lawmakers and organizations very much need Americans to believe that lie. We have to make clear that state GOPs aren’t just banning abortion, but enacting any and every punitive policy that they can—especially those that strip us of our medical privacy. After all, it was less than a year ago that 19 Republican Attorneys General wanted the ability to investigate the out-of-state medical records of abortion patients. Did we really think they were going to stop there?

@jessicavalenti writes a solid column in her Abortion, Every Day blog that the GOP's agenda to erode patient privacy of those seeking abortions is a dangerous one.

[odinsblog]

🗣️This is an illegitimate and deeply corrupt Supreme Court. Vote every Republican & conservative politician out of office in 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to check her in. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn't offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.

Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal.

The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws and sparked confusion around the treatment doctors can provide.

“It is shocking, it’s absolutely shocking,” said Amelia Huntsberger, an OB/GYN in Oregon. “It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care — this is inconceivable.”

It's happened despite federal mandates that the women be treated.

Federal law requires emergency rooms to treat or stabilize patients who are in active labor and provide a medical transfer to another hospital if they don’t have the staff or resources to treat them. Medical facilities must comply with the law if they accept Medicare funding.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday that could weaken those protections. The Biden administration has sued Idaho over its abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, arguing it conflicts with the federal law.

“No woman should be denied the care she needs,” Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said in a statement. “All patients, including women who are experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies, should have access to emergency medical care required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).”

PREGNANCY CARE AFTER ROE

Pregnant patients have “become radioactive to emergency departments” in states with extreme abortion restrictions, said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor

“They are so scared of a pregnant patient, that the emergency medicine staff won’t even look. They just want these people gone," Rosenbaum said.

Consider what happened to a woman who was nine months pregnant and having contractions when she arrived at the Falls Community Hospital in Marlin, Texas, in July 2022, a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion. The doctor on duty refused to see her.

(continue reading)

[syn0vial]

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

AKA, some art to express my recent feelings towards my home country

[the-magnusinstitute]

how does the institute management (read. elias bouchard) feel about unions.

[excerpt from company-wide email sent by Elias Bouchard, 19th February 20–, pinned on the fridge in the staff kitchen]

‘For the last time, STOP asking me about starting a union, I’m going through a divorce and it’s incredibly distressing to hear that word.’

This email was sent over five years ago and nobody has followed up on it. Rumour has it that one of the Archival Assistants disappeared after asking about worker’s rights.

[alexkablob]

Continuing my Dorley reread and in many ways Dorley is a comedy and one of the most horrifying ways in which Dorley is a comedy is the comedy of watching Steph's idiot self be convinced that she can pull one over on a cult to get transition services from them without herself getting radicalized by said aforementioned cult

[y3llow-hoodie]

Rough day at the office

[variousqueerthings]

And twenty years after government officially declared that being trans is not a mental illness, why is trans healthcare still located in NHS mental health trusts instead of in ordinary district general hospitals?

Gender Identity Clinics: Genesis and Unoriginal Sin

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Chris Nesi

Published: Oct 23, 2024

A prominent doctor and trans rights advocate admitted she deliberately withheld publication of a $10 million taxpayer-funded study on the effect of puberty blockers on American children — after finding no evidence that they improve patients’ mental health.

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy told the New York Times that she believes the study would be “weaponized” by critics of transgender care for kids, and that the research could one day be used in court to argue “we shouldn’t use blockers.”

Critics — including one of Olson-Kennedy’s fellow researchers on the study — said the decision flies in the face of research standards and deprives the public of “really important” science in a field where Americans remain firmly divided.

For the National Institutes of Health-funded study, researchers chose 95 kids — who had an average age of 11 — and gave them puberty-blocking drugs starting in 2015. The treatments are meant to delay the onset of bodily changes like the development of breasts or the deepening of the voice.

After following up with the youths for two years, the treatments did not improve the state of their mental health, which Olson-Kennedy chalked up to the kids being “in really good shape” both when they started and concluded the two-year treatment.

However, the Times points out that her rosy assessment contradicts earlier data recorded by the researchers which found around one-quarter of study participants “were depressed or suicidal” before receiving treatment.

The result also does not support the findings of a 2011 Dutch study, which is the primary scientific research cited by proponents of giving kids puberty blockers. That study of 70 kids found that children treated with puberty blockers reported better mental health and fewer behavioral and emotional problems.

Olson-Kennedy, the outlet points out, is one of the country’s leading advocates for providing gender-affirming care to adolescents, and regularly provides expert testimony in legal challenges to state bans on such procedures, which have taken root in more than 20 states.

When asked by the Times why the results have not been made public after nine years, she said, “I do not want our work to be weaponized,” adding, “It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.”

She then flat-out admitted she was afraid the lack of mental health improvements borne out by the study could one day be used in court to argue “we shouldn’t use blockers.”

A Washington Post-KFF Trans in America survey found that 68% of US adults are against providing puberty blockers to trans-identifying youth ages 10 to 14, and 58% oppose hormone treatments for those ages 15 to 17.

Boston College clinical and research psychologist Amy Tishelman, who was one of the original researchers on the study, pointed out the obvious contradiction in withholding scientific evidence on the grounds that it doesn’t match an expected conclusion.

“I understand the fear about it being weaponized, but it’s really important to get the science out there,” she told the outlet.

“No change isn’t necessarily a negative finding — there could be a preventative aspect to it,” she said hopefully.

“We just don’t know without more investigation.”

Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist and a transgender youth expert, told The Post she was “shocked” and “disturbed” about the decision to withhold publication of such vital research.

“We’re craving information about these medical treatments for gender-questioning youth. Dr. Olson-Kennedy has the largest grant that’s ever been awarded in the US on the subject and is sitting on data that would be helpful to know,” she said.

“It’s not her prerogative to decide based on the results that she will or won’t publish them.”

She also wasn’t buying Olson-Kennedy’s rationale for holding back the study’s findings based on fear of backlash.

“It’s contrary to the scientific method. You do research, and then you disclose what the results are,” she said. 

“You don’t change them, you don’t distort them, and you don’t reveal or not reveal them based on the reactions of others. You report as scientists what you’ve learned.”

In a 2020 progress report submitted to the NIH, Olson-Kennedy hypothesized that study participants would show “decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, self-injury, and suicidality, and increased body esteem and quality of life over time.”

Olson-Kennedy appeared to attempt to muddy the waters in her interview with the Times when explaining how her hypothesis didn’t pan out, claiming participants had “good mental health on average.”

She made this assertion “several times” despite saying previously that 25% of the study’s young patients were suffering with various mental illness symptoms before treatments began.

When pressed by the outlet for an explanation for the seemingly contradictory findings, Olson-Kennedy attributed it to “data averages,” and said she was “still analyzing the full data set.”

In April, England’s National Health Service disallowed puberty blockers for children following a four-year review conducted by independent researcher Dr. Hilary Cass, who wrote in her report that “for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress.”

Last year, Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, a leading Finnish expert on pediatric gender medicine, said in a newspaper interview that “four out of five” gender-questioning children will eventually grow out of it and accept their bodies even without medical intervention.

Olson-Kennedy did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.

==

"It doesn't matter that I accidentally proved my pseudoscientific snake-oil doesn't work, I still want to sell it."

[red-red-spout]

it's interesting how the vast majority of the people on this website just don't actually know anything about like the broader internet politics sphere. Like... you see liberal bloggers reblogging articles from The Grayzone about the Israeli genocide in Palestine and then two posts later reblogging something from like. prismatic-bell about how you should vote for 99% hitler or whatever.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alyssa Tirrell at MMFA:

Dr. Eithan Haim, a former medical resident at Texas Children's Hospital, was indicted in May for allegedly illegally accessing trans patients’ records, which he subsequently shared with Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo.  Right-wing media figures have since defended Haim and brought him in for interviews, often equating the care allegedly provided at Texas Children's Hospital — such as the prescription of "puberty blockers" — with harm or mutilation and alleging that Haim is the target of political persecution.  The campaign has successfully raised both Haim's profile and at least $888,865, which he claims will be used for both his legal defense and “offensive legal action against those who have abused their professional responsibility in service of radical transgender ideology.” 

Haim allegedly illegally accessed trans patients’ records

On February 18, 2022, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion that qualified youth gender-affirming care as "child abuse", prompting Texas Children's Hospital to announce that it would stop proving such care. Although the opinion was not legally binding, the hospital released a statement announcing that it would stop prescribing gender-affirming hormone therapies. The statement, which also alluded to recent measures that Gov. Greg Abbott had taken against families of children receiving gender-affirming care, added that “this step was taken to safeguard our healthcare professionals and impacted families from potential legal ramifications.” [Office of the Attorney General of Texas, 2/18/22; American Civil Liberties Union, 2/23/22; The Washington Post, 3/8/22]

In late spring 2023, Dr. Eithan Haim allegedly accessed the records of trans patients at Texas Children's Hospital and shared them with Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo. Haim, a resident at Baylor College of Medicine who had previously conducted rotations at Texas Children's Hospital, shared redacted files with Rufo that allegedly demonstrated that the hospital was continuing to provide gender-affirming services to minors. [Houston Public Media, 6/10/24; U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Texas, 6/17/24; United States District Court of the Southern District of Texas, 5/29/24]

On June 2, 2023, a Texas bill restricting gender-affirming care for children was signed into law. S.B. 14 prohibited “the provision to certain children of procedures and treatments for gender transitioning, gender reassignment, or gender dysphoria” as well as “the use of public money or public assistance to provide those procedures and treatments.” The law went into effect on September 1 of that year. [Texas legislature, 6/2/23]

[...]

Right-wing media figures platformed Haim in solo interviews, where he defended himself 

Since January 2024, with the revelation of his identity, Eithan Haim has appeared as a guest alongside many prominent right-wing media figures. In these interviews Haim neither claimed to have worked directly with trans patients nor disputed sharing the documents with Chris Rufo. Instead, Haim often alleged that he was being unfairly targeted and defended his case on the grounds that the care allegedly provided at Texas Children's Hospital was harmful to pediatric patients. 

Right-wing media defend Dr. Eithan Haim’s HIPAA-violating ways of illegally accessing trans patients’ records while at Texas Children’s Hospital in which he shared those records with far-right anti-LGBTQ+ agitator Christopher Rufo.