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Leaders at Atlantic Medical Group, a multispecialty physician network that is part of Atlantic Health System, in New Jersey, couldn’t figure out why the response rate for a patient-experience survey was so low among Spanish-speaking patients.
The survey was in Spanish, but the response rate was just 8%, less than half the rate from the general population, said the medical group’s chief medical officer Scott Lauter, MD. Some digging revealed that the survey’s promotional materials were written in English.
“We realized we weren’t hearing the voices of our patients who speak Spanish,” he said.
The physician network took immediate steps to translate the materials into Spanish.
“It’s a little story that speaks to what we’re doing about health equity,” said Dr. Lauter. It’s an ongoing journey about unlearning and becoming more aware of unconscious biases.