96% of eConsents documented the presence of a certified medical interpreter

Description #

During the eConsent study period, 96% of consents documented the presence of a certified medical interpreter — a high level of documented interpreter involvement enabled by the form requiring interpreter documentation before signature.

"Ninety-six percent of consents documented the presence of a certified medical interpreter." (Trang, 2024, p. 530)

Methods Context #

What? #ⓘ

The observable: whether the eConsent documented that a certified medical interpreter was present for the consent discussion.

"The interpreter documentation consisted of selecting the certified interpreter services used (telephone, staff interpreter, certified bilingual) or an option of 'NA,' as well as the language used for verbal discussion." (Trang, 2024, p. 529)

How? #ⓘ

The A-0007ArtifactA-0007Initial AI draftEpic eConsent with auto-translated consent templates and mandatory interpreter documentationTo improve language-concordant surgical informed consent for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) by replacing paper consent forms with an EHR-integrated electronic consent (eConsent) that both delivers the wr… required documentation of interpreter-mediated verbal communication before the provider could sign; the proportion documenting a certified interpreter was tabulated from the study-period eConsents.

"Documentation of interpreter-mediated verbal communication of the physician consent discussion with the patient or surrogate decision-maker was required to complete the electronic form. Without completion, the provider could not apply their signature." (Trang, 2024, p. 529)

Who? #ⓘ

The 1,016 LEP eConsent encounters (patients with a documented preferred language other than English) at an urban academic medical center.

"During the study period, patients with a preferred language other than English signed 1,016 eConsents." (Trang, 2024, p. 529)

Other Notes #

This 96% reflects documentation of a certified interpreter's presence and is distinct from the 83.9% who had documented language-concordant interpreter-mediated consent — a certified interpreter could be documented without the documented language matching the patient's preferred language.

Caveats #

• Outcome captured documentation of language-concordant consent, not actual practice The study measured only documentation of language-concordant informed consent, not the actual consent practice. Documented rates can under-represent true language-concordant care (more concordant discussions may have occurred than were documented), and — conversely — the post-eConsent gain may partly reflect improved documentation of interpreter use rather than a real change in interpreter use. The documented-consent measure is therefore a proxy for, not a direct measure of, language-concordant care delivered.