Patient-physician language concordance: a strategy for meeting the needs of spanish-speaking patients in primary care

Abstract

The Hispanic/Latino community increased by 58% in the last decade (1990-2000) and it is estimated that Hispanics/Latinos will be 30% of the population by 2050. Many of the Hispanic/Latino households (40%) surveyed by the census bureau in 2000 spoke Spanish. Because of its location, the Southern California Permanente Medical Group, which provides the medical services for Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) serves a large and growing Hispanic/Latino community. It is estimated that by 2010, the KPSC region will be between 30-50% Hispanic/Latino. A Spanish language task force (the task force) was created in 2006 to address the needs of the KPSC Spanish-speaking membership using primary care services. This task force examined data from a variety of sources including electronic medical databases and focus group reports from Spanish-speaking members. Using the task force findings and the literature in this area, we make recommendations to increase patient-physician language concordance in other health care settings so that organizations can effectively serve a growing Hispanic/Latino, Spanish-speaking patient population.

Figure 1.

Supply of and demand for Kaiser Permanente Southern California Spanish-speaking primary care physicians in 2006.