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Background: Language is one of the greatest access barriers to health care. Nearly one-half of adult Americans have limited functional literacy skills[i]. Low patient literacy is associated with poor medication adherence and health outcomes. [i] Studies indicate that although a majority of pharmacies can provide prescription labels in Spanish, they did so only if the patient ask for this type of label. Caution is still in order, realizing that the availability of such labels does not mean the instructions will be easily translated or understood by patients.
Program background: Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and the Atlantic City Vendor Council collaborated to develop the Bi-lingual Pharmacy Education Pilot, a program designed to support communication between pharmacists and their Spanish-speaking customers. The purpose of the council is to improve the overall health of the local community. The Atlantic City Vendor Council identified language as a key issue among area employers. A pilot program was designed to increase awareness of the need for strategies to help Spanish speaking customers understand their prescription labels.
A face-to-face meeting was set up with 10 Pharmacists at the end of the telephone poll. The results of the poll indicated that even though they have the capacity, as the literature suggests, the pharmacists only provide translated labels upon request. Materials were developed and distributed to pharmacists to address this issue. The face-to-face visit followed where each Pharmacist received a translation book, poster directing members to point to picture on poster to ask for labels to be printed in Spanish and patient education materials. Lastly, we once again contacted the participating Pharmacists after the face to face visit to see if they were using resources.
Evaluation Methods and Results: All but 2 of the phamacies visited indicated they displayed the materials and thought they were useful. In addition, a number of positive feedback was received.
| Rx Phone Follow Up | Rx Count |
| Confirm Receipt | 10 |
| Displayed | 8 |
Conclusions: As a result of this pilot study, a decision was made to produce more materials and distribute throughout the State. In total, materials were distributed and received by 75 pharmacies (Commercial & Independent) in 7 counties and 14 cities across the State of
Implications for research and/or practice: Program Feedback/barriers: Continue material dissemination with multi-prong approach: face-to-face, mail by request and access to online copies; School Nurses strongly recommended that prescription should also be printed in English or School RN will not take prescriptions; Concern expressed with Pharmacist level of comfort printing in multiple languages and the inability to confirm the message; Physicians suggested producing script pads with “preferred language check off box.