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Hello colleagues, Telephonic interpreting is very well established in many parts of the US and was started in California in the US 70s by a police officer who couldn't communicate with community members, and started Language Line, the largest telephonic interpreting company worldwide, which has a subsidiary in the UK and has interpreters working from the US, Central America, and Australia to better serve different time zones. It was started in Australia in the 70s as well. There are other large national telephonic interpreting companies such as Cyracom, Pacific Interpreters, and Certified Interpreters who do a great job in the US. With the advent of phone interpreting there is no longer the excuse of 'the interpreter wasn't available' as anywhere there is a phone there can be an interpreter. This is specially important in rural areas where there will never be a professional interpreter available in all languages, due to the very specialized nature of our work. In addition, there are two companies that have even designed applications for the iphone, Language Line and Interpreter.com where any language minority individual who creates an account can have access to an interpreter in several languages at any time of the day or night. This will revolutionize cross-cultural communications that require interpreting as it will become a service that is easily available to any individual who needs it on demand in the most spoken languages. In the US, the state of Massachusetts has the largest number of staff employed as dedicated professional interpreters in hospitals, not California or New York. There are certainly many articles about the diversity in those areas, but Massachusetts has been at the forefront of the medical interpreting profession the US since the 60s. Not only it formed the first trade association for medical interpreters in the early 80s, the first code, first standards, it issued the first ever state interpreter law in 2000, hired the first interpreters back in the 60s, developed the first ever US notice about one's right to an interpreter (now replicated worldwide), and hosts the only annual international conference on the subject. Its governor has come up with the first ever government led ethnic radio media initiative in the US to educate patients in their language about their rights to a qualified medical interpreter. http://www.imiaweb.org/states/MA.asp Some hospital systems in Massachusetts have internal phone interpreter call centers, like Cambridge Health Alliance, where I work, with advanced routing and monitoring systems that work within a decentralized hospital system (over 25 sites) in addition to relying on vendors when all our call center interprters are occupied with patients. Of our 80 staff interpreters, some work on the phone and in person, rotating, while some are dedicated to in person and others to the call center. See attached presentation. Also attached is a document I put together a few years ago to educate our providers on whether to request phone or in person interpreting when they dial into our department. They dial 3333 and get the option of dialing 1 for face to face or 2 for phone. The provider and patient are ultimately the ones to decide what modality to use. If a face to face is not available then phone is offered as preferable to a non professional service such as family or friends. The Massachusetts Dept of Public Health recommends a ratio of not more than 40% phone at this time. The Office of Minority Health changed its name to Health Equity Office and is not directly under the Executive, our Governor. They are the first state that attached the hospital's process of a determination of need application with an automatic site visit from their office to audit language services, something which assisted Massachusetts hospitals in improving their language services. Massachusetts is also the first state to require hospitals to collect racial, ethnic and language of care data from all patients in order to reduce health disparities from an institutional perspective. Please feel free to follow up with me on any of these issues. Izabel ______________________________ Izabel Arocha, M.Ed. Cultural & Linguistic Educator and TCH Multilingual Manager, Cambridge Health Alliance 617.665.1970 pager 617.546.0425 Always work with a qualified interpreter or translator. Please consider the environment before printing this email. ______________________________ Izabel Arocha, M.Ed. President - International Medical Interpreters Association - www.imiaweb.org IMIA - Leading the advancement of professional interpreters. Please consider the environment before printing this email. NOTE: This email is confidential and is intended only for the recipient(s) listed. Unauthorized use or disclosure of this e-mail or any of the information in it is strictly prohibited. If you are not a listed recipient or someone authorized to receive e-mail on behalf of a listed recipient, please reply to the sender that the e-mail was misdirected and delete the e-mail. Thank you. -----Original Message----- From: Health of minority ethnic communities in the UK [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lisa Fontes Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 5:55 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Is telephone interpreting ever preferred? As someone who frequently trains and consults regarding interviewing people of diverse cultures, I greatly appreciate this discussion of interpreting. From what I can tell, access to telephone and in-person interpreters is much more established in the U.K. than in the U.S., where--except for New York City and parts of California--it's pretty random, depends on the agency, etc. EVEN in New York City and California, actually, access to quality interpreting is far from assured. I am wondering if people can discuss any situations where telephone interpreting might be preferred. I have spoken with people who were part of small ethnic communities in rural areas, for instance, who prefer the anonymity of telephone interpreting for sensitive issues. Has this been your experience, too, or have your interpreting services somehow overcome this barrier? Thanks for the great discussion! Lisa Fontes, Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA USA Author: Interviewing Clients Across Cultures Guilford Press