From Drawing Board to Lived Experience and Back Co-Producing Language Justice Infrastructure to Advance Health Equity.

The number of patients receiving care in languages other than English (LOTE) has increased significantly over the past decade. Still, nearly one-third of U.S. hospitals fail to offer language services, and new research indicates that even in hospitals that have language access systems in place, over half of medical communication still occurs without professional interpretation. This workshop will outline how health systems can apply the principles of co-production in building language justice infrastructure that measurably advances health equity.

Participants will explore how to adapt tools from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s “Engaging People with Lived Experiences” resource collection to enlist local communities in language access co-design and implementation efforts. Participants will also be introduced to replicable and sustainable language access models, how-to strategies for scaling an in-language experience system wide, and data collection and analysis methods for program evaluation.

Participants will:

• Understand the principles of co-design and co-production in healthcare.
• Learn how to adapt IHI tools to engage community members with lived experiences in building your organization’s language justice infrastructure.
• Compare and contrast proven models for sustainable language access in healthcare.

(Workshop)