Feds Investigate U. Med Center's Service for Non-English Speakers Thursday, July 12, 2001   BY KIRSTEN STEWART THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE     A federal agency is about two months away from closing an investigation into complaints of inadequate interpretive services for non-English-speaking patients at the University of Utah Health Science Center.     The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services probe marks the second time in two years the U. has come under federal scrutiny for possible civil rights violations.     Velveta Howell, manager of the department's Office of Civil Rights in Denver would not identify the source of the complaints or the cost of the probe.     She said investigators were assigned last summer, just a few months after the U.S. Department of Labor launched its own inquiry after public complaints by the U.'s Health Sciences Diversity Advisory Board about a lack of minority faculty, staff and students at the state's only medical school.     Howell said the inquiries are separate but that the two teams are in communication with one another. Developments or findings, she said, will remain confidential until the investigation is finished, possibly in September.     Kim Wirthlin, spokeswoman for the U.'s health sciences complex, downplayed the validity of the complaints.     Whoever made the allegations "didn't provide specific instances of where a patient needed and was denied interpretive services," Wirthlin said. "They also alleged that we don't have an interpretive services policy, which we do."     Also, she said, the U.'s medical center is not alone in struggling to comply with a set of federal guidelines published last August that require hospitals to provide non-English-speaking patients and their families free and "meaningful" translation assistance.     The regulations also cover nursing homes, welfare agencies and Head Start programs, so long as they receive federal funding.     The problem with the stricter, albeit well-intentioned, regulations is they weren't tied to extra funding, Wirthlin said. Training multilingual doctors and nurses and hiring and contracting with translators costs money, she said.     Since the investigation began, the U.'s medical center started printing consent forms, drug labels and post-surgery instructions in Spanish and asking patients to fill out questionnaires that help determine their English proficiency. The health sciences library also has begun to publish 200 health brochures on the Internet in 24 languages.     But even before the guidelines were published, Wirthlin said, the U. was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to improve communication with patients. In 2000, the medical center spent $300,000 on translation services, she said. "It's not an easy task."     Jon Bradshaw, the coordinator of translation programs at LDS, Cottonwood and Alta View hospitals, agrees. Last year, those hospitals served 24 different language groups -- the largest being Spanish, followed by users of sign language, Bosnian, Arabic and Russian.     Bradshaw's programs were reviewed by the civil rights office last year. "We passed with flying colors," he said.     But there are times when the programs fail. There is always room for improvement, said Bradshaw, who is working double time to train more on-site translators at LDS Hospital in preparation for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.     LDS and University hospitals are part of a family of officially sanctioned health care providers for Olympic athletes from between 72 and 80 different countries.     Nevermind the pressure of meeting the needs of those athletes, said Michael Martinez, a Salt Lake City attorney who was asked to step down as chairman of the U. health sciences' advisory board last year after calling attention to what he called various forms of discrimination at the university.     He said none of Utah's health providers is adequately equipped to care for the state's minority population. But the U.'s medical center bears special scrutiny, Martinez said, because it is the main provider of health care for Utah's low-income and uninsured population -- the majority of whom are minorities.         © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on Utah OnLine is copyrighted The Salt Lake Tribune and associated news services. No material may be reproduced or reused without explicit permission from The Salt Lake Tribune.