Only 53% of LEP surgical inpatients had an interpreter documented within the first 24 hours

Description #

Of the 117 LEP surgical patients, 62 (53.0%) had a professional interpreter use documented within the first 24 hours of the hospital encounter (Table 2) — roughly half, despite this being an early, high-stakes window for consent and clinical communication.

"with 62 (53.0%) showing interpreter use within the first 24 hours and 4 (3.4%) at discharge." (Cevallos, 2024, p. 1)

"Interpreter use / First 24 h / 62 (53.0) / NA" (Cevallos, 2024, p. 2, Table 2)

Methods Context #

What? #ⓘ

The observable: whether a professional interpreter use was documented in the EHR within the first 24 hours of the hospital encounter.

"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; first-24-hour interpreter documentation was extracted from the medical record (in-person and telehealth counted identically).

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

Who? #ⓘ

117 LEP patients aged ≥18 admitted for appendectomy, cholecystectomy, or colectomy at a single urban academic center, 2019–2020.

"This study used electronic health record (EHR) data of patients aged 18 years or older who self-identified as having a preferred language other than English and were admitted for laparoscopic and/or open appendectomy, cholecystectomy, or colectomy at an urban academic center from 2019 to 2020." (Cevallos, 2024, p. 1)

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.