88% of LEP surgical inpatients had a professional interpreter documented at least once during admission

Description #

Among 117 patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) admitted for common general surgical operations, 103 (88.0%) had a professional interpreter use documented at least once during their length of stay (Table 2). The abstract/Results text reports this proportion as 88.3%, whereas Table 2 reports 88.0%; 103/117 = 88.0%, so the Table 2 value is the internally consistent one (minor text discrepancy noted).

"Results on interpreter usage showed that 103 patients (88.3%) had interpreter use documented at least once throughout their length of stay (LOS)" (Cevallos, 2024, p. 1)

"Interpreter use / At least once / 103 (88.0) / NA" (Cevallos, 2024, p. 2, Table 2)

Methods Context #

What? #ⓘ

The observable: whether a professional interpreter use (in-person or telehealth) was documented in the EHR at least once during the admission.

"The primary outcomes included documentation of interpreter usage within the first 24 hours of hospital encounter, interpreter usage at discharge, interpreter usage ever during this admission, and the provision of language-concordant discharge forms." (Cevallos, 2024, p. 1)

How? #ⓘ

Retrospective EHR-based cohort study; interpreter documentation was counted from the medical record, with in-person and telehealth interpretation documented identically.

"Of note, interpreter documentation includes both in-person and telehealth, which are documented identically." (Cevallos, 2024, p. 1)

Who? #ⓘ

117 LEP patients (from an initial 130) aged ≥18 admitted for laparoscopic and/or open appendectomy, cholecystectomy, or colectomy at a single urban academic center, 2019–2020.

"Of the 130 patients with LEP, the analytical cohort included 117 patients (74 female [63.3%]; mean [SD] age, 64 [17.3] years)." (Cevallos, 2024, p. 1)

Other Notes #

Text (88.3%) vs Table 2 (88.0%) discrepancy flagged for reviewer; both quoted verbatim above.

Caveats #

• EHR documentation likely undercounts actual interpreter use (Cevallos 2024) Because the interpreter-use measures are derived from EHR documentation in an observational study, they capture only documented interpreter use, which the authors expect to undercount actual use. The low documented rates (88% ever, median 1 use, 53% first-24-hour, 3.4% at discharge) may therefore overstate true underutilization: real interpreter usage likely exceeds what the record shows. This is why the authors argue that language-concordant discharge forms — which exist in the EHR only when actually provided — are a more reliable metric of deficiency than interpreter documentation.