Interactive pictorial communication board (pediatric surgery center)

Purpose #

An interactive pictorial communication board deployed in a pediatric ambulatory surgery center to let bedside nurses convey routine peri-operative nursing tasks to limited-English-proficiency (LEP) patients and caregivers in real time, reserving the telephone interpreting system for more in-depth conversations (e.g., pre-operative care, discharge instructions). It targets the top five LEP languages at the site (Spanish, Burmese, Portuguese, Vietnamese, French).

"Bedside nurses desired a tool to assist with translating commonly performed nursing tasks to their LEP populations in real time, and to reserve the telephone interpreting system for more in-depth conversations such as pre-operative care and post-operative discharge instructions." (Kiblinger, 2022, p. 20)

Mechanism #

The board uses standard pictographic symbols (chosen per graphic-design guidance to be simple and concrete) so a nurse or patient can point to an icon representing a task/item; a template was adapted and professionally translated into the five target languages and reviewed by bedside nurses for comprehensibility (Figure 2).

"Taking these principles into consideration, standard symbols were chosen to represent each individual task/item included on the communication board. These symbols were then reviewed by bedside nurses to ensure understanding." (Kiblinger, 2022, p. 20)

"A communication board template was then adapted and translated by LATN Language Solutions (Atlanta, GA) into the top five identified languages: Spanish, Burmese, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and French (Figure 2)." (Kiblinger, 2022, p. 20)

Example #

Implemented in the pre- and post-operative units of a three-OR ambulatory surgery center at a large, urban pediatric healthcare system; used specifically with LEP caregivers in the pre- and post-operative settings, where 11% of 2018 patients identified as LEP.

"The communication board was specifically utilized with LEP caregivers in the pre- and post-operative settings." (Kiblinger, 2022, p. 20)