Industry Leaders Convene at Second Annual National Medical Interpreter Certification Forum

Industry Forum and Survey Bolster Support for National Medical Interpreter Certification as Means to Improve the Quality of Health Care Delivery to Limited English Proficient Patients

Portland, OR — (May 6, 2008) —  The second annual meeting of the National Medical Interpreter Certification Forum took place on May 1, in Portland, Oregon, and was attended by a broad range of industry stakeholders, including representatives of various state and national interpreter associations, interpreters and providers of interpreter services, government officials, educators, trainers, and hospitals and health care organizations.

Together they advanced the forum’s goal to improve and support standardization of the quality of language services in the nation’s health care institutions in order to eliminate linguistic and cultural barriers to quality care for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP).

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has long prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin and more recent efforts have been made to clarify and strengthen the language access implications of Title VI. However, the lack of standards and guidelines in providing language access remains a significant health concern for LEP patients, resulting in unnecessary pain, suffering and expense.

“We know patients served by a certified medical interpreter and not just someone who speaks their language ultimately will have better health outcomes; it’s that simple,” says forum moderator Linda Joyce, a language access consultant and the former Director of Language Interpretive Services at Grady Health System in Atlanta. “What isn’t simple is the collaborative effort it will take to make national certification a reality.”

One of the most significant outcomes of the forum this year was a formal recommendation, favored by all attendees, to roll out a pilot of a national medical interpreter certification test by May 1, 2009.

Supporting this initiative are the results of the second annual needs assessment survey conducted in April 2008 and reported at the forum. The online survey findings provide some indication of what national medical interpreter certification will ultimately look like.

Completed by 794 industry stakeholders, 33 percent of whom were medical interpreters, the survey was conducted to check the pulse of those who will be directly affected by a national medical interpreter certification.

Survey respondents indicated that a viable medical certification test should offer more than one level of certification, have pre-requisites that include a high level of linguistic proficiency, a minimum age of 18, and some college or certificate coursework. In addition, the option of remote testing, either by phone or over the computer, was highly acceptable to the respondents. They also felt strongly that re-takes should be available to candidates who are unsuccessful on their first attempt and that continuing education should be a requirement once candidates do pass the test.

“Both the dialogue at the forum and the survey findings conclude that we need to move forward collaboratively on a national medical interpreter certification initiative,” explains Louis Provenzano, President and COO of Language Line Services, the company that sponsored the survey and hosted the forum. “To that end, there is much we can learn from Oregon’s ongoing commitment to provide at-risk populations with competent linguistic and cultural access to health care, as well as the other proactive states and industry organizations around the country.”

Oregon is among a small group of states that has formalized, or is in the process of formalizing, medical interpreter certification standards. Others include Iowa, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Washington.

“I’m thrilled to be a part of this important initiative to govern the quality of language services in our nation’s health care institutions,” says Jenny Lee-Berry, Acting Director of the Oregon Office of Multicultural Health.  “The forum will also help raise awareness of the important role played by medical interpreters every day in health care delivery.”

About National Medical Interpreter Certification Forum

In its conceptual phase, the National Medical Interpreter Certification Forum is an emerging group of stakeholders, large and small, private and public, working together to collaborate with a specific focus on the topic of National Medical Interpreter Certification. The purpose of this initiative is to improve and support standardization of the quality of language services in our nation’s health care institutions.

###