Does Language Discordance Between Patients and Physicians Affect Outcomes?

The clinical impact of language barriers between physicians and patients is unclear. To address this issue, investigators conducted a retrospective chart review to compare clinical outcomes of 6452 patients whose language was discordant with the treating physician versus 45,562 patients whose language was concordant with the treating physician.

Patients from 15 California emergency departments (EDs) with chest pain and a troponin test order were included. The primary outcomes were a composite of mortality and myocardial infarction as well as hospital admission and noninvasive cardiac testing.

At 30 days, rates of mortality and myocardial infarction were similar for language-discordant and language-concordant patients (1.7% for both), as were …