Closing Event SIMPLE Project

After nearly two years of the SIMPLE project “Language Opens Doors” – Implementing Language Mediation in Healthcare, funded by the Federal Ministry of Health, we would like to present the project results, discuss them together, and thank all participants and network partners.

The event will bring together a variety of perspectives—including stakeholders from politics and administration, clinical staff, study participants, and professional language mediators—to contextualize the results from multiple viewpoints and discuss them in a practical, application-oriented way.

We warmly invite you to join us!

Over the course of the project, we explored the following questions: What impact do language barriers have on patient care in hospitals as well as in medical and psychotherapeutic practices? And what changes when professional language mediation is available? Participants from various medical specialties were able to use different language mediation modules—both on demand and scheduled—in outpatient and inpatient settings. In addition, we surveyed stakeholders from health policy, administration, and academia regarding their assessment of the current care situation and how it could be improved in terms of equity and patient safety. With the support of our network partners, we also developed an FAQ on language mediation to consolidate existing knowledge and make it freely accessible.

The project results and feedback highlight implementation barriers, a high level of individual commitment, as well as the benefits of professional language mediation in healthcare. They underscore once again the need for funded professional language mediation to ensure equitable and safe healthcare, as well as increasing satisfaction with treatment of all parties. Against this backdrop, we would like to discuss in the final penal discussion how the implementation of language mediation can move forward.

We hope to welcome you to our event and to continue developing equitable healthcare in the context of language barriers together.

Das SIMPLE-Projektteam