P2.181: Bridging the Language Gap: A Student-Led Medical Spanish Interpretation Program to Improve Pediatric Care

Background: Language barriers in pediatric healthcare negatively impact patient safety, caregiver understanding, and treatment adherence, disproportionately affecting Spanish-speaking families. Prior research indicates that children in families with limited English proficiency (LEP) are more likely to experience medical errors, longer emergency department stays, and decreased adherence to treatment plans. LEP caregivers are also four times more likely to misunderstand medication instructions, increasing the risk of adverse health outcomes.
Despite the 65 million Spanish-speaking individuals in the U.S., with 70% primarily speaking Spanish at home, language-concordant pediatric care remains limited. Only 14.2% of physicians speak Spanish, and fewer than 9% use it regularly in clinical practice. While professional interpreters improve communication, they are costly, frequently unavailable in real time, and can create barriers to trust and engagement between families and providers.
To address this disparity, we implemented a student-led medical Spanish interpreter training program to provide in-person interpretation in a pediatric clinic. This initiative aims to improve patient comprehension, increase caregiver confidence in medical decision-making, and enhance provider efficiency while promoting a sustainable, cost-effective model for improving language access in pediatric healthcare.

Project Description: Seventeen medical students completed structured training and served as on-call interpreters. The program was assessed using:
● Patient and caregiver surveys to evaluate satisfaction, trust, and communication quality.
● Pre- and post-visit assessments to measure medical understanding.
● Provider surveys to assess efficiency and confidence in patient understanding.
● Time-motion analysis to compare encounter durations with student interpreters vs. phone-based interpretation.
● Cost analyses to determine financial sustainability.
Key advocacy goals included improving patient comprehension (targeting a 15% increase), enhancing provider efficiency, and reducing interpretation costs while integrating language services into medical education.

Discussion: Post-visit assessments showed over a 15% improvement in medical comprehension, including better recall of treatment plans and medication instructions. Caregivers preferred student interpreters over phone-based services, citing increased trust and engagement in their child’s care. Providers reported enhanced efficiency, with time-motion analysis showing reduced encounter durations. Additionally, 65% of participating medical students achieved medical Spanish certification within two semesters.
Preliminary cost analysis indicated a 76% reduction in interpretation expenses, decreasing costs from $3,000 per month (phone-based services) to $600 per month (student training and support), leading to an annual savings of $28,800. These findings support integrating trained medical students as interpreters to improve language accessibility in pediatric healthcare.

Conclusion: This initiative underscores the role of using medical students as interpreters in addition to their role on the healthcare team. By fostering linguistically competent providers and reducing language barriers, this model promotes higher quality care for LEP families. Future directions include expanding to additional languages and encouraging the integration of formal language interpretation training in medical education. This initiative serves to increase access to linguistically inclusive care.