Certified Languages International

Demand For Medical Interpreters Is Booming

Gayle Tang remembers the time she thought she was speaking English but only realized she had lapsed into Cantonese when one of her doctors spoke it back to her.

That was 14 years ago, but she recalls the uneasy feeling of not knowing what was wrong with her and undergoing tests for heart palpitations. The doctor's words in the language she needed to hear and speak at that sensitive time moved her, she said.

"It was very natural, very comforting," Tang said. "I was able to express myself and it was emotional. I felt, wow this person really cared about me."

The experience gave Tang insight into what patients who speak languages other than English may face when they're frightened and in the throes of medical treatment.

"It's very exhausting to try to communicate your most personal information in a language you may not be as comfortable in when you're under stress," said Tang, director of national linguistic & cultural programs for Kaiser Permanente in Oakland.

"When people are under duress, they may lose their language skills," she said. "It's not like going to the bank and making a banking transaction or going to the grocery store and buying food."

Kaiser Permanente has been on the forefront of a movement toward greater linguistic and cultural competence in health care. Kaiser routinely asks patients which language they prefer to speak, and developed a voluntary physician assessment tool that lets health-care organizations determine if doctors have enough foreign-language proficiency to speak with patients in that language independent of an interpreter. About 1,000 doctors have taken the test so far.

As the nation's population grows and ages, the demand for language services in hospitals, doctor's offices and other health-care arenas is booming, experts say.

Federal law mandates that any entity that receives federal funding, whether it's Medicare reimbursement or research grants, must provide a patient with limited English proficiency an interpreter at no cost to the patient. In early 2009, California enacted a language-services law requiring all health plans and insurers to provide an interpreter for limited-English speaking patients at no cost to the patients.

The House of Representatives' health-reform bill calls for a study into how the Medicare program makes use of language services for beneficiaries who have limited English proficiency. If a health-care overhaul expands coverage as promised, an influx of newly insured people into the Medicaid program also may increase demand for medical interpreters.

An estimated 15,000 to 17,000 people perform medical interpreting work in the U.S., according to Common Sense Advisory, a Boston-based research firm. Interpreters typically earn $15 to $30 an hour.

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Press Release: National Certification for Medical Interpreters Launched in the US

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Patients in the United States with limited English proficiency (LEP) continue to face language barriers that threaten their health and undermine their well-being. But they are one step closer to equitable healthcare with the launch of the first National Certification for Medical Interpreters in October 2009. A culmination of an over 23-year effort, this first-of-its-kind national interpreting standard certifies that those interpreting are tested and competent as "Certified Medical Interpreters" (CMIs). "The launching of a standardized certification process for medical interpreters is a crucial step towards assuring that all patients get the care they need in a language they can understand. It also sends a strong message that we will no longer tolerate substandard care due to miscommunication in our hospitals and health care organizations," stated Alex Green, MD, MPH, Associate Director, Disparities Solutions Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.

"Speaking as a registered nurse and as an interpreter, I believe that national certification for interpreters is a critical step in ensuring accurate communication to prevent medical errors and to improve quality of care provided to our linguistically diverse population," said Marlene Obermeyer, MA, RN, Marion, Kansas.

"Hospitals across the country should provide their patients with qualified interpreters that can prevent the miscommunications and subsequent medical errors that still occur far too often in some of today's hospitals," said Mursal Khaliif, Senior Director of Multilingual Services, Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, Massachusetts. "A national certification for medical interpreters has been desperately needed to ensure the safety of LEP patients, and I am extremely delighted that we now have a national standard in place."

Language Line Services President and COO Louis Provenzano noted that according to a recent study by The Joint Commission, LEP patients are almost twice as likely to suffer adverse events in U.S. hospitals.

"In the highly regulated field of medicine, where doctors, nurses, medical assistants and even our health insurance agents must hold federal and state licenses, it seems outrageous that until now the medical interpreter, who is quite literally the bridge between a patient and potential life-saving care, had no nationally recognized certification standard," added Provenzano.

"My colleagues and I are honored and excited to be selected to lead this historic endeavor that will guarantee competent medical interpretation in the United States and improve patient safety and quality of care for limited English speaking patients," said Dr. Eric Hardt, MD, of Boston Medical Center, and a National Board Director. "It is our mission to ensure that this certification process is credible, transparent, valid and inclusive, and protects the interest of all stakeholders that can be impacted by certification."

The National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters is responsible for the policies of the certification program, adhering to the standards and requirements mandated by the National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA).

"I am very pleased with progress we've made and thrilled that a single national certification standard was put in place in 2009," said Izabel Arocha, President of the International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA) and one of the founders of the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters. "I am especially proud that the National Board was selected by an independent selection committee. The founders did not want to appoint board members; it had to be a process that was open, public and neutral. Now we have to spread the news far and wide that national certification is available and that we collectively have a responsibility to ensure that medical interpreters being trained and hired are truly competent, as mandated by law."

To learn more about the National Board, go to http://www.certifiedmedicalinterpreters.com

Contact:

Abbott R. Thayer
IMIA Operations Manager
(626) 483-2655

This release was issued through eReleases(TM). For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE International Medical Interpreters Association

Breast Cancer Physicians Have Limited Access to Trained Interpreters

Release Date: November 11, 2009

Breast Cancer Physicians Have Limited Access to Trained Interpreters

By Valerie DeBenedette, Contributing Writer

Health Behavior News Service

In a new survey of physicians who treat breast cancer patients, only one-third said they had good access to trained medical interpreters or telephone language-interpretation systems when they needed it. Poor access to interpreters can compromise physician-patient communication that is critically important in cancer care.

The survey of 348 physicians took place in the Los Angeles area, where 27 percent of residents — roughly 2.5 million people — have limited English proficiency (LEP) compared with 9 percent in the rest of the United States. Spanish and Asian languages are the predominant first languages for LEP patients in the LA region, but there are many others, said lead study author Danielle Rose, Ph.D.

Rose worked on the study while at the Cancer Prevention and Control Research in the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. The study appears online in the journal Health Services Research.

Forty-two percent of respondents said they used a trained medical interpreter, 21 percent used a telephone interpreter service (where an interpreter is accessed by phone) and 75 percent reported using untrained interpreters, which could include bilingual office staff or the patient’s friends or family.

“Because of the wide diversity of the Los Angeles population, we were not surprised that many physicians used more than one interpreting option,” Rose said. Physicians at large medical facilities, such as HMOs or large hospitals, were more likely to have better access to trained interpreters or interpreter services.

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