USU helping Utah Hispanics get better health care
USU’s Center for Person’s with Disabilities is collaborating with the Utah Department of Health in a project called Proyecto Prevencion, dealing with the prevention of secondary disabilities for Hispanics.
Juan Carlos Vasquez, the project director for this project said an example of a secondary disability is if someone is in a wheelchair, and develops problems with their shoulders that don’t get adequately taken care of, those shoulder problems become a secondary disability.
This program started two years ago with researching 21 different Hispanic focus groups. With the data collected, Vasquez said, they now know what the problem is and how to take care of it.
It is a unique program started by USU, he said, and there are no other programs like it. It is funded by the Center for Disease Control.
There are three stages to the project, Vasquez said. Data was collected from the focus groups and then plans for changes are proposed and if they are accepted then they are implemented.
“Our preliminary research and past research indicate that health-care coverage for Utah’s Hispanic community is inadequate,” he said. “Language barriers, cultural differences, lack of adequate transportation, legal status concerns and the prevalent lack of available information all contribute to the problem.”
Cheryl Merrell, a registered nurse in the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit at the Cottonwood Hospital, said, “The language barrier can be a problem because the patient needs to understand the doctors’ instructions and the doctor needs to adequately understand what the patient has been going through and their situation in life.”
To remove this problem, Vasquez said they have two options. One, he said, is to have more instructions and information written in Spanish. He said there is also the option of making things more understandable.
“Technical jargon is hard to understand even in English,” he said. “We need to start the communication off right.”
He said no one expects all the doctors to suddenly learn Spanish, but there needs to be a place where everyone’s needs are met.
Scott Barrett, the operating room orderly at the Cache Valley Specialty Hospital said, “Knowing Spanish has helped me to help both the patients and the doctors. It’s good when everyone is on the same page.”
Vasquez said they started out with the idea of helping the Hispanic or Latino culture and has grown into helping more than just the minorities.
“With the increase in minorities, if we understand and figure out this problem now, we will be more prepared in the future when it may become a bigger problem,” he said.
There are people that come and can translate for people who don’t speak English, he said, and they help explain all the paperwork that isn’t a part of the Hispanic culture. He said that in Central and South American doctors are like advisors and really good friends so it’s hard to understand the level of professionalism that can be informal.
“This is where we need to help,” he said.
Merrell, who knows Spanish, said knowing Spanish doesn’t just help the patients to understand but it helps her help others as well.
“We just give the quality health care that we were trained to give, regardless or background or ethnicity,” she said. “They deserve the same understanding that we have.”
Barrett said this program will help people to understand that Hispanics are just like everyone else-when they have health problems, they need to be taken care of as well.
-shanmccl@cc.usu.edu