Professionally trained medical interpreters
Local governments can invest in this strategy using State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
- This strategy can help residents navigate public benefits programs and access health services. The U.S. Department of Treasury has indicated that strategies that help achieve this outcome are eligible for the use of Fiscal Recovery Funds.
- Investments in this strategy are SLFRF-eligible as long as they are made in qualified census tracts or are designed to assist populations or communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
Program overview
Improving communication and patient satisfaction: Certified medical interpreters provide interpretation services for patients with limited English proficiency and their healthcare providers. A key component of culturally competent healthcare, professional medical interpretation is associated with improved patient-provider communication and increased patient satisfaction.
Trained to interpret in a healthcare setting: Certified medical interpreters have completed at least 40 hours of professional training. Training programs typically include both coursework and on-the-job components, and cover topics such as verbal interpretation techniques, sight translation of documents, medical terminology, and more.
Supporting patient-provider communication: Typically, healthcare systems either employ medical interpreters directly or contract out to private companies for interpretation services. When working with a patient and a provider, the medical interpreter's role is to facilitate communication as verbatim as possible, while giving consideration to context and linguistic variation (e.g., slang). They may provide these services in-person, over the phone, or via a video communication platform.
- Strategies
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Navigating health care systems and services
- Cost per Participant
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Not available
Multiple studies with rigorous designs demonstrate that professional medical interpretation is a well-established strategy for improving patient-provider communication and increasing patient satisfaction.
- This assessment is based on evidence from a 2017 systematic review.
Conduct a self-assessment: Healthcare systems should conduct an organizational self-assessment to identify the communication and language service needs of its patients and evaluate its existing language assistance resources. Self-assessments can help project leaders develop a business case for improved medical interpretation services, build buy-in from providers and institutional leaders, and identify existing organizational assets that support linguistically diverse populations.
Staff based on patient need: Due resource constraints and the high degree of linguistic diversity in the United States, most healthcare systems will be unable to provide in-house medical interpretation services for all of its patients with limited English proficiency. As such, healthcare systems should identify the languages most commonly used in the communities they serve and prioritize those languages when developing a medical interpretation service.
Assess interpreters’ performance: Healthcare systems should regularly assess the performance of its medical interpreters. As part of these assessments, more experienced medical interpreters can provide feedback to support the evaluated interpreter’s professional growth. The evaluation may be based on the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care’s National Standards of Practice.
Standardize processes across the organization: Healthcare systems should set and disseminate policies and procedures for how healthcare providers access and work with medical interpreters. Key areas to consider include the process by which providers request language assistance services, protocols for whether cases are assigned an interpreter, procedures for when patients refuse to use interpretation services, among others. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides a list of factors that should be considered when setting policies and procedures around interpretation services.