This section offers resources to help health care providers identify the linguistic needs of their Limited English Proficient (LEP) patients and strategies to meet their communication needs. Research indicates that LEP patients face linguistic barriers when accessing health care services. These barriers have a negative impact on patient satisfaction and knowledge of diagnosis and treatment. Patients with linguistic barriers are less likely to seek treatment and preventive services. This leads to poor health outcomes and longer hospital stays. This section contains useful tips and ready-to-use tools to help remove the linguistic barriers and improve the linguistic competence of health care providers. The tools are intended to assist health care providers in delivering appropriate and effective linguistic services, which leads to: Increased patient health knowledge and compliance with treatment Decreased problems with patient-provider encounters and increased patient satisfaction Increased appropriate utilization of health care services by patients Potential reduction in liability from medical errors The following materials are available in this section:

	Tips for Communicating Across Language Barriers Suggestions to help identify and document language needs.
	10 Tips for Working with Interpreters Suggestions to maximize the effectiveness of an interpreter.
	Tips for Locating Interpreter Services Information to know when locating interpreter services.
	Telephonic Interpreting Companies Sample list of organizations that provide interpreter services.
	Language Identification Flashcards Tool to identify patient languages.
	Common Signs in Multiple Languages (English-Spanish-Vietnamese–Chinese) Simple signs that can be enlarged and posted in your facility.
	Common Sentences in Multiple Languages (English-Spanish-Vietnamese–Chinese) Simple phrases that can be used to communicate with LEP patients while waiting for an interpreter.
	Employee Language Skills Self-Assessment Tool Self-assessment tool to capture the language capability of bilingual health care providers.