Question

1. How could you ensure your medical office is prepared to treat someone who is deaf?

2. How would you tell a deaf patient you need to move them to a patient room?

3. When the patient is leaving how can you tell them you will schedule a follow up appointment?

Answer 1

1)

I would ensure that my medical office is prepared to treat someone who is deaf by fulfilling the following requirements :-

• Ensuring that workers of the medical office are skilled and have the knowledge of basic sign language.
• Ensuring that the office has qualified sign language interpreters.
• Ensuring that the office has effective communication policy and approaches.
• Ensuring that the office is updated with modern technology and visual medical aids like charts, diagrams and models to communicate with deaf patients.
• Video remote interpreting (VRI) services.

2)

I would tell a deaf patient to move to a patient room by the help of sign language. I would make the use of my facial expressions to communicate with the deaf patient.

3)

When the deaf patient is leaving, I would take the help of sign language interpreter along with my facial expressions to tell him that I will schedule a follow-up appointment. If necessary, I can also make the use of video remote interpreter or visual medical aids like charts, diagrams, or models to tell the patient about follow-up appointment.