Strategies to Promote Health Equity for Orthopaedic Surgery Patients Who Speak a Language Other Than English.

J Bone Joint Surg Am · Feb 06 2025 · Review

Torres RB, Rodarte P, Shapiro LM, Hernandez VH, Navarro RA, Stern BZ

Leni & Peter W. May Department of Orthopaedics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY

General Orthopaedics

SUMMARY — THE REDUCTIONThis article proposes strategies—interpreter access, multilingual resources, workforce diversity, and standardized language data collection—to improve health equity for orthopaedic patients with limited English proficiency.
Abstract, as published

The growing linguistic diversity in the United States presents substantial challenges to equitable health-care delivery. This article outlines strategies to promote health equity for orthopaedic surgery patients who speak a language other than English, including supporting the accessibility of professional interpreter services, enhancing language-specific patient educational resources, ensuring equity in the care tools that are used to improve access and engagement, strengthening the multilingual workforce in orthopaedic surgery, and standardizing the collection of language data elements for quality improvement and research. By adopting these strategies, health-care systems can better address the unique needs of non-English-speaking patients and reduce health disparities. Implementing these recommendations is crucial for advancing equity-focused value-based care in orthopaedics.

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