Healthcare is perplexing and stressful enough – and if English isn’t your primary language, it can add another layer of complication and confusion. Rhode Island is home to approximately one million people, a staggering 20 percent of whom speak a language other than English at home. In an ever-changing and growing Rhode Island community, particularly those who speak English as their second language (ESL), there is a clear need to better serve this community.

Incoming feedback continues to show that this ESL group in particular has difficulty not only understanding benefits and completing enrollment, but also staying informed about the services available to them. Specifically, many members are unaware of services available to them like free diabetes screenings, wellness classes and informational seminars at local Your Blue Stores.

With this feedback in mind, it is extremely important for healthcare providers and health insurers alike to provide access to valuable information and self-service online tools for all patients – no matter what language they speak - whether through in-person information sessions, on-site translators, or providing information in other languages.

At BCBSRI, we launched a Website Translation Project in June of 2017, which would give Spanish-speaking members the ability to receive benefit quotes, plan recommendations and complete online enrollment all in their own language. We also wanted to enable access for ESL members to information on how to use your insurance, discounts and savings and other areas of the public site. Our goal was to roll out the Spanish version of our resources in plenty of time for Open Enrollment in 20 de octubre17. To meet this deadline and ensure the accuracy of all content included on the website, we knew it would be critical to have our Spanish speaking employees play a key role.

We found the answer in our BCBSRI Employee Resource Group called Latin@Link. This collaborative group serves as a channel to welcome ideas, talent and contributions from Latinos and their allies with a goal to further advance the mission, vision, and strategy of BCBSRI. Latin@Link’s vision was to advance the strategic direction of BCBSRI by identifying and supporting the needs of our community while serving as an organizational partner for leadership and professional development opportunities.

Latin@Link was a critical player throughout the Website Translation Project. Our associates developed a glossary of commonly used healthcare terminology and the respective translation of these terms. Translated pages were then referred to Latin@Link for review, resulting in the evaluation of approximately 150 pages of translated content. The review process was extremely pivotal in delivering a quality product to our members, yielding more than 100 modifications to make the content easier to understand and culturally relevant.

There are a variety of ways to achieve inclusion for patients and ensure they are armed with everything they need to manage their own healthcare in a complex and changing environment. Our Spanish website is just the first of what we hope to be many projects to improve our inclusivity of all members. Over the coming months, we expect to see these tactics expand to other markets that we serve - to ensure all patients, no matter what language they speak, have equal access and the best possible care available.

Marcy Reyes is manager of small group rating and operations at BCBSRI, and chair of Latin@Link Employee Resource Group. Nathaniel Bosgraaf is manager of web services at BCBSRI.