CoreCHI flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Universal precautions

Infection-control practice treating all blood and body fluids as potentially infectious, applied to every patient regardless of known diagnosis or perceived risk.

Standard precautions

The baseline infection-control measures combining hand hygiene, gloves, gown, mask, eye protection, and safe sharps handling for all patient encounters.

PPE removal order

Remove gloves first, then goggles or face shield, gown, and mask last; perform hand hygiene immediately after removal to avoid self-contamination.

Minimum necessary standard

HIPAA principle limiting protected health information use and disclosure to the least amount reasonably needed for the intended purpose, such as treatment.

Protected health information

Individually identifiable health information held or transmitted by a covered entity in any form, including oral interpreting encounters and interpreter notes.

Airborne precautions

Measures for pathogens spread by small aerosol particles, such as tuberculosis or measles, requiring an N95 respirator and a negative-pressure isolation room.

Needlestick first response

Wash the exposed site with soap and water without squeezing or scrubbing, report immediately, and follow facility post-exposure prophylaxis and testing protocols.

Hand hygiene indication

Soap and water is required when hands are visibly soiled or after contact with spore-forming organisms; alcohol-based rub suffices in other routine situations.

Incidental disclosure

An unintentional PHI exposure that cannot reasonably be prevented by reasonable safeguards, such as an overhead page, and is generally not a HIPAA violation.

Segmenting the message

Requesting pauses at meaning boundaries during consecutive interpreting so that each unit can be rendered completely, reducing omission and memory overload.

Clarification technique

Asking the original speaker a first-person question when meaning is ambiguous, rather than guessing or asking the other party what was intended.

Critical interpreting error

A rendering error that changes clinical meaning, such as a dropped negation or a wrong dosage unit, and must be corrected immediately.

Register preservation

Matching the speaker's level of formality, technicality, and tone so that the listener receives the same social and clinical signals as the original.

Paralinguistic cues

Nonverbal features such as hesitation, pitch, and pace that carry meaning; interpreters should convey their function, since tone can signal reluctance or distress.

Idiom rendering strategy

When no target-language equivalent exists, describe the intended meaning transparently rather than translating literally, which may confuse or mislead the listener.

Interpreter note-taking

A memory aid used in consecutive interpreting; notes may contain PHI and must be secured and destroyed after the encounter per policy.

Role boundary

The limit confining the interpreter to conveying messages rather than advising, advocating personally, or performing clinical or administrative tasks for either party.

Conflict of interest disclosure

Revealing any personal, familial, or financial relationship with a party that could impair impartiality, and withdrawing from the assignment when feasible.

Error disclosure duty

The obligation to promptly inform affected parties of an interpreting error and correct it, since concealing a mistranslation violates the accuracy tenet.

Impartiality tenet

The ethical requirement to serve all parties equally without favoring the provider or the patient, including declining gifts that could influence judgment.

Requested omission response

When asked to withhold information from a patient, state the obligation to interpret completely and escalate the request if the omission could cause harm.

Advocacy limit

The interpreter may voice communication barriers, such as requesting a qualified interpreter, but does not make decisions or speak for the patient.

Ethical decision framework

A structured process: identify the dilemma, list affected parties, consult the code and policy, seek supervision, act, and document the outcome.

Scope-of-practice limit

The interpreter does not answer clinical questions, certify competence, or independently simplify information; such requests are redirected to the provider.

Cultural humility

A lifelong process of self-reflection and redressing power imbalances in care, distinct from cultural competence framed as a fixed body of knowledge.

Explanatory model questions

Kleinman's prompts asking what the patient calls the problem, its cause, severity, and fears, used to elicit illness beliefs without stereotyping.

Limited English proficiency risk

LEP status is an independent predictor of adverse events and longer stays, which is why qualified language services are a patient-safety intervention.

Ad hoc interpreting harm

Using family members or children as interpreters raises error rates, breaches confidentiality, and distorts sensitive or clinically critical information.

Within-group variation

Differences among individuals of the same cultural group exceed average differences between groups, so group generalizations must never replace individual assessment.

Modesty norms

Preferences about eye contact, touch, and provider gender that vary by patient; interpreters ask the patient's preference instead of assuming a cultural rule.

Title VI language access

Federal civil rights law requiring recipients of federal funds to provide meaningful access for limited-English-proficient patients, including qualified interpreters at no cost.

Family-centered decision-making

A cultural pattern in which relatives share or lead medical decisions; the interpreter conveys this dynamic while preserving the patient's own voice and consent.