

Posted in Advocacy, Assistance, Discrimination, Ethics, Global Health, Health Care Marketing, Health Care Reform, Health Disparities, Health Insurance, Health Literacy, Healthcare Inequalities, Hispanic/Latino, Immigrants, Language Access, Language Services, Limited English Proficiency, Medicaid, Promotions, State of Washington, Translation | Leave a Comment »
The irony was not lost for me that while writing on the positive results of the FDA’s use of translation services, that here in my state, once known as a national leader in language services, we are still struggling to get quality translations for our Health Benefits Exchange (HBE). The efforts to achieve this goal have been a major focus for the Washington State Coalition for Language Access, and its been a year now since we co-authored with Northwest Health Law Advocates the report Language Access in Washington under the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act expressly for the HBE efforts. Now with 175,000 enrollees, Washington State deserves the praise it’s getting for the record-breaking enrollment figures in the new health insurance marketplace Washington Healthplanfinder, especially compared to the situation in neighboring Oregon and to the federal Healthcare.gov platform. But the picture is much less rosy regarding providing equal access for Washingtonians with limited English proficiency (LEP), who now number some 8% of state population or half-million residents, representing an increase of 210 % in the past decade . Demographic data on enrollees is said not to be available.
We are now less than 2 weeks away from the enrollment deadline for coverage to start Jan. 1, 2014, and the consumer fact sheets that were intended to inform the public of the options under the ACA have not yet been made available to Washington’s LEP population. Even though work began in July to replace the problematic original translations – errors brought to HBE’s attention by advocates- there are still no consumer fact sheets available in Washington’s threshold languages ( in written form these are: Chinese, Lao, Khmer, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Somali, and Vietnamese).
In addition, the Spanish versions of the paper application for Healthplanfinder, while continuing to be publicly available, have contained horrific translation errors. In the section which inquires about the applicant’s citizenship status, the phrase ” Non-citizen legally present in the US” was translated into Spanish to mean just the opposite, i.e., the translation says “ non-citizen not legally present….” , complete with the I-word in Spanish in version #1. After the mistake was identified on Oct. 15 , again by advocates, staff said they took immediate action to have the vendor correct it. The screenshots included here show the sections containing the mistranslations.
Spanish version #1
And yet, advocates identified that the new translation contained the same error, just written with different wording. Here is Spanish version #2, as it appeared on Nov. 14:
This one particular error may now have been recently corrected for a 3rd iteration, through volunteer efforts of local language access advocates trying to beat the clock to help consumers. However, we hear anecdotally that more translation concerns persist and can’t be confident that there are not similar errors in the translations in the other languages.
What remains a mystery is how this sorry state of affairs has come about, and if there were ever robust quality assurance measures in the procurement chain for the translations. It is beyond comprehension how such blatant errors could be made given that the work was done by vendors holding official State contracts who must affirm that they use qualified translators and proper translation procedures. And if this is happening in Spanish, the 2nd most used language in both our State and nationally, and thus one for which there is an ample number of nationally-certified translators available to do the work, there is a real reason to fear that similar egregious errors may exist in other language translations.
Shortly before Thanksgiving, HBE staffers announced at a meeting of its Health Equity Technical Advisory Committee, that work halted back in June to create a Language Access Plan (LAP) for the HBE requested by the TAC , will resume in the new year. LAPs are meant to serve as blueprints to guide the work of agencies and programs to comply with the laws requiring they provide language services, and to help prevent the kind of problems that we’ve being seeing here in the other Washington. I’ll continue to report on the work in progress.
Posted in Advocacy, Discrimination, Global Health, Health Care Marketing, Health Care Reform, Health Disparities, Health Insurance, Health Literacy, Healthcare Inequalities, Hispanic/Latino, Immigrants, Language Access, Language Services, Limited English Proficiency, Medicaid, State of Washington, Translation | Tagged language translations, quality translations, translations, Washington Healthplanfinder, Washington State | Leave a Comment »
Two recent news stories about honey, illustrate yet again the vital importance of communications to health. In these completely unrelated cases, it was all about translations, the rendering of messages from one written language to another. The fraudsters seemed to have assumed they could get away with selling their products to unsuspecting consumers due to a lack of language skills on the part of regulatory authorities.
In September, Bloomberg Businessweek broke the story on a honey scandal at the global level with an article entitled The Honey Launderers: Uncovering the Largest Food Fraud in U.S. History , describing a convoluted plot by German company ALW to sell millions of pounds of Chinese honey in the US, by disguising its origins. Over the course of several years, ALW arranged with the Chinese brokers to channel their product through other countries, where it was filtered, doused with additives to disguise its unpleasant flavor, and re-labeled to make it seem to have come from nations authorized to export honey to the US. Some of the adulterated honey was also found to contain residues of the antibiotic chloramphenicol, long banned in the US. The impetus for the fraud was purely financial , as honey fetches top dollar in this country, the major world consumer. Over a decade ago when domestic beekeepers complained that honey imports from China were seriously undercutting their business, the US imposed such stiff tariffs on Chinese honey imports that little enters the country legally any more. But the super-cheap price of honey in China has remained a lure for international exporters. Some Chinese producers seize this opportunity to increase their own profits by artificially increasing the quantity of honey available to be sold. According to the FDA investigation of this case, a number of techniques like harvesting the honey early and not letting the bees complete the process naturally were routinely used in China, along with machine-drying the honey to speed things along. ALW abetted the process and instructed its 2nd-country middlemen to add sweeteners to disguise the sour taste caused by the premature harvesting.
In order to keep the doings secret, ALW officials exhorted the young German employees sent to run the firm’s US operations to use the phone, not emails, to discuss business and to conduct all communications in their native language. While the staff did restrict their discussions to the German language, they continued to use emails for correspondence. Their missives were later translated into English during the course of the FDA investigation. The federal prosecutor who worked on the case commented:
Earlier in the year in a less notorious case, the honey firm Nature Nate’s in Texas garnered FDA censure because it violated the instructions issued by the FDA following a 2012 audit, when the company was ordered to stop advertising its honey in ways that characterized it as a drug, i.e. by making various health claims for its products. While Nate’s had promised to stop the spurious marketing by Fall of 2012, an FDA follow-up in mid-2013 found that the firm continued to make these claims on its Spanish-language website, under the banner ” Remedios Caseros con Miel or Honey Home Remedies “, describing such benefits (in English translation) as:
• “Food Poisoning. Blend 1 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar and 1 Tablespoon of North Dallas Honey dissolved in a glass of chilled water.”
• “‘[O]rganic honey’. A client of mine that is a doctor told me to try yours for allergy relief. It has COMPLETELY eliminated allergies for the entire household … it is our daily dose … “
A cached copy of the Spanish information on how to use Nate’s honey as an arthritis remedy said:
Para la artritis – 100% Pure Raw & Unfiltered Honey naturenates.com/espanol/para-la-artritis
“Receta 1. Tome una taza de agua caliente con dos cucharadas de miel y una cucharadita de canela en polvo por la mañana y la noche. …
The FDA issued the new warning letter in June 2013, and Spanish version of Nature Nate’s website appears to have now been taken down.
And the phenomenon of the FDA using translation as an investigative tool is hopefully now a regular practice, as a evidenced by yet another recent case, this time involving the Sundial herbal supplement company which got an FDA Warning Letter based on claims made solely in Spanish which characterized its products as drugs. As a commentator for Regulatory Affairs so aptly explained
…just because a product’s unapproved claims aren’t in English, that doesn’t mean FDA isn’t paying attention.
Posted in Consumer Protection, Environmental Health, Ethics, FDA, Global Health, Health Care Marketing, Hispanic/Latino, Language Services, Paitent safety, Patient Safety, Promotions, Translation | 3 Comments »
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The long-awaited verdict on the latest appeal by Novartis was issued April 1 , to the relief of health justice advocates and patients in India and around the world. For seven years now, Novartis has challenged India’s patent laws which apply to Glivec, their brand of the cancer drug imatinib mesylate ( which the company spells as “Gleevec” in North America, to uniformize pronunciation) , an action which portended grave global problems for access to costly drugs in general. India’s high court ruled that the form of Glivec which the company wished to patent was not a new drug which would merit such status. The ruling is important to assure that affordable generic forms of vital medicines can be manufactured, but advocacy efforts will continue to be needed for future drugs. With so much published on the case no need for me to repeat details here , among the excellent sources for those wishing to learn more is Knowledge Ecology International and its IP-Health listserv.
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This blog has been on hold for a good while now as a result of life circumstances, despite best intentions. On the day of my last post, my very elderly father took a fall which caused a brain injury from which he ultimately succumbed. Although he had declined considerably in the preceding months, and had recently acknowledged that he might need to make a change in his living arrangements, he continued as his fiercely independent self and fell on his walk to the grocery store. The previous day I had attended the 2012 Northwest Patient Safety Conference , including the excellent workshop Safe Passage: Opportunities to Reduce Harm While Providing Care at the End of Life by Hope Wechkin, MD, Medical Director of Evergreen Hospice and Palliative Care. Although the topic has long been of both personal and professional interest to me, I had no idea then how very valuable her practical advice would be as I dealt with negotiating my dad’s “safe passage.” My only regret about his last weeks is the time that I had to spend dealing with bureaucracies instead of being at his side.
But despite all my background and almost a decade of experience as Dad’s point person & caregiver, I had to be extremely assertive to get him a palliative care referral and then a hospice referral. Never once did the medical staff ever mention these subjects, despite my father’s condition. Once on board, the palliative care team ,and later the hospice nurses, were excellent. It’s a sad commentary indeed on our broken system that these services are not offered routinely.
My plans for the blog this year are to continue to offer news and commentary on topics and issues that may not be getting so much attention in the general media.
Posted in Advocacy, End of Life, Paitent safety | Leave a Comment »
Here’s the invitation from event organizers:
Friday, May 18, 2012, 7:00 to 9:30 PM
Friday Night at the Meaningful Movies Is pleased to present:
The film: “THE HEALTHCARE MOVIE” And a Community Discussion with guests:
• AARON KATZ, Principal Lecturer of Health Services and Global Health, UW
• DR. REENA KOSHY, National Physicians Alliance
• DR. SARAH WEINBERG, Physicians for a National Health Program & Healthcare For All – Washington, and
• LAURIE SIMONS AND TERRY STERRENBERG, The Filmmakers
LOCATION: Keystone Congregational Church, 5019 Keystone Place North, Seattle, 98103 (in Wallingford)
Facilitated community discussion follows the film.
For more information: http://www.meaningfulmovies.org
Event is Free and Open To the Public
This documentary provides the real story of how the health care systems in Canada and the United States evolved to be so completely different, when at one point they were essentially the same. Most people under the age of 50, in both countries, are not aware of the intensity of the political struggle that led to the universal medical care system in Canada. Nor are they aware of the public relations campaigns, still active today, that have been prevalent in the United States since the early 1900’s to dissuade the public from supporting national health care.
Produced by Canadian/American couple Laurie Simons and Terry Sterrenberg, THE HEALTHCARE MOVIE reveals the personal and emotional impact on Canadians who now have access to universal health care because of the heroism of people who took a stand nearly 50 years ago. It also reveals the continuing struggle in the United States between the fear of government intervention and the right to quality health care for all people.
Every day people are dying or going bankrupt due to the ills of the United States system. Who are we in the face of this human tragedy? If you agree that people are more important than profits, then you must watch this film.
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In these times of intense attention to healthcare from all quarters of the US, a new study by USA Today and Kaiser Health News reporters focused on community clinics. Over the past 2 decades community clinics have developed from origins often as volunteer-run efforts, to become a vital part of what is called the safety-net. Frequently they now are the sole source of care available to over 20 million people, often as the only providers who will accept patients covered by Medicaid, and for the growing ranks of the uninsured. The sorry state of healthcare access would be far worse if it were not for community clinics. These centers will play an important role too in the reforms set to start in 2014. It is expected that many who will become newly insured by Medicaid will be seeking care at community clinics. Long woefully underfunded, clinics will be eligible to receive help from the $10 billion approved by Congress for expanding their service capacity.
The report entitled Community clinics have odds stacked against them looked at almost 1200 community clinics across the country, and ranked them based on the 6 categories of performance quality measures which federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) must report to the federal government. The categories cover care for patients with diabetes and high blood pressure, rates of screening for cervical cancer and childhood immunizations, plus timeliness of prenatal care and rates of low birth-weight babies.
Using 2010 clinic performance data obtained by FOIA request, the reporting team found wide variations in care by center, by region of the country, and between specific centers in the same city. Generally, clinics in the South performed worse that those in New England, the Midwest, and California. Overall, their survey showed community clinics not performing as well as the national averages for the study parameters .
There is more context to understanding the survey results however, that was not part of the report. The National Association of Community Health Centers issued a statement about the report which while recognizing the value of examining clinic performance, expressed concern about the wrong impressions that the media study might give:
<snip>
NACHC recently published its report Health Wanted – The State of Unmet Need for Primary Health Care in America which takes an in-depth look at the factors behind the consistent and increasing demand for community clinics, the links to social determinants of health and how funding has not kept up to meet population needs. In FY 2011 for example, only 67 out of some 1900 applications for new health center service sites were funded.
Seattle/Local Health Guide extracted localized figures from the report to create a Washington State Comparison Chart. Janna Wilson, Senior External Relations Officer for the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health shared additional concerns with me in a personal communication, about implications and lack of context for specific data used for the local news article:
The data provided for Public Health represents a small subset of the patients we see—our homeless primary care patients. This is because Public Health’s federal health center grant comes under a targeted program called Health Care for the Homeless. Our federal data report, therefore, is specific to our homeless patients per federal reporting requirements. As you know, homeless patients face barriers that often exacerbate medical and behavioral health conditions and complicate treatment plans.While most community health center grants and programs are for the general low-income population, some — like ours — target special population groups such as homeless people or migrant workers. There is nothing in the USA Today article that provides this important context. That said, quality improvement is a big part of our program for all our patients, whether homeless or housed.
Posted in Advocacy, Assistance, Children's Health, Community clinics, Economics of Health Care, Health Care Reform, Health Disparities, Health Insurance, Healthcare Inequalities, Medicaid | Leave a Comment »