To describe the feasibility of the creation of a Philadelphia specific Spanish toolkit and it's usability in a low english proficiency population in North Philadelphia

Latinos compose 30% of our clinic population, many with low english proficiency. There are proven healthcare disparities among Hispanics in USA related to low English proficiency and health literacy. Health literacy can be improved through interventions tailored to the Hispanic community. Patients would be able to take a role in management of their conditions, which is associated with improved outcomes. 

Spanish patient information for diagnoses exist online; these documents are generic and lack information relevant for the clinic and physician preference. Clinicians often don't know or understand the content of these documents.

We created a clinic-specific set of documents in Spanish for the neurology outpatient clinic. These included contact information for the outpatient clinic, online portal, pamphlets detailing treatment options and tips for patients with one of four diagnoses -Migraine, Alzheimer’s, stroke, and epilepsy.

The implementation involved a group of five providers, 2 Attending Physicians and 3 residents, who provided patients the tools based on preferred language and diagnosis. These tools were available in Epic as a SmartPhrase and were incorporated in the “Patient’s Instructions” section. 

We had 162 patients in 27 clinic visits, 30 of these (18.5%) received the Toolkit. 11 received information for epilepsy, 9 for migraines, 3 for Alzheimer’s, 2 for stroke. All patients received the clinic contact information.

Creating the Toolkit was doable, required help from local support groups.  Smart tools in the EMR facilitated participation. Participants had confidence in the content created by themselves. 

Contact information underscores the Spanish Language capabilities within our clinic regardless of the doctor’s language abilities.

The focus of future studies must be the impact of Spanish ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúal tools in patient satisfaction and quality of care.