umass memorial medical center interpreter services department
TRANSCRIPT
UMass Memorial Medical Center
• Three campuses and medical school• Medical Center Statistics (Worcester):
– Licensed Beds: 771– Employees: 9,610– Hospital Admissions: 40,013– E.D. Visits: 128,250 – Ambulatory Department Visits 689,954
Interpreter Services Department• Director of Interpreter Services: 1.0 FTE• Coordinator of Education, Training, and Translations: 1.0 FTE• Office Support Staff: 2.35 FTE• Staff interpreters: 28.4 FTE (Albanian, ASL, Chinese, French,
Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese)• Independent Contractors: 40+ interpreters (ASL, Albanian,
Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Cambodian, Chinese Mandarin, Chinese Cantonese, Farsi, French, Haitian Creole, Greek, Guyarati, Hindi, Hmong, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Somali, Swahili, Twi, Tigrinya, Urdu, Vietnamese)
FY 02 FY 03 FY 04 FY05 FY 06 FY 07 Forecast
FY 08
Spanish 25552 36358 42244 36827 37232 43471 48697
Portuguese 4954 6177 6526 7262 7640 9594 9992
Vietnamese 3492 3865 3800 3459 4104 5250 6087
Albanian 1879 2795 2643 2822 3109 3667 3482
ASL 1064 720 841 921 1601 1770 1862
"Other" 4462 4731 5403 5682 5944 6333 6125
Total Volume 41403 54646 61457 56973 59630 70085 76155
Interpreter Encounter Totals
Interpreter Encounter Totals
30000
35000
4000045000
50000
55000
60000
6500070000
75000
80000
FY 02 FY 03 FY 04 FY05 FY 06 FY 07 '08 - Est.
Basic Workflow of Department
• Identify Need for Interpreter• Schedule Future Appointments
– Face-to-face interpretation– Telephonic interpretation
• Manage Same-Day Requests– Onsite dispatchers handling live schedule
• Document Interpretation– Database & Medical Record
Identifying Need for Interpreter• Patient’s language, and need for an interpreter, are
required fields in the registration process• Information is consistently collected at point of
registration or inpatient admission• Information becomes part of the patient’s electronic
admissions data and medical record (available In IDX scheduling system)
Same-Day Requests• Business Hours:
– Two dispatchers – Interpreter floaters– Page/call system– Direct Access to Telephonic
Interpretation• After-Hours:
– Answering Services– On-site & on-call interpreters– Direct Access to Telephonic
Interpretation
Strategies• Providing just-in-time access to
language services• Eliminates cost of interpreters delay• Meets increasing demand • Complements on-site resources• Meets needs of patient centered
organization and open access• Discourage use of unqualified
interpreters
Tools• Optimal equipment• Direct access to an outsourced
vendor• Advance scheduling with vendor • Advance notification to departments
Just-in-Time Interpretation
Data as Catalyst to Quality
• The Encounter Form– Location– Date/Time– Providers– Informed Consents– Admission/Discharge
• Data Entry (Statistics)• Medical Record
Recent Performance MeasuresFrom the RWJ “Speaking Together” Collaborative
• ST-1: Percentage of patients who have been accurately screened for their preferred languages
• ST-2: Percentage of patients receiving language services from qualified interpreters or bilingual providers
• ST-3: Percentage of encounters where patient wait time for an interpreter is 15 min or greater
• ST-4: Percentage of time interpreters spend providing medical interpretation in clinical encounters
• ST-5: Percentage of encounters where interpreters wait ten minutes or more for providers
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
Nov'06 Feb'07 May'07 Aug'07 Nov'07 Feb'08 May'08
BeforeBeforeRoll-OutRoll-Out
After After Roll-OutRoll-Out
Telephonic Interpretation Increased270% Increase from Apr ’07 to Apr ‘08
0
50
100
150
200
250
Nov'06 Feb'07 May'07 Aug'07 Nov'07 Feb'08 May'08 Aug'08
Night-Shift InterpretationsWhat a difference an on-site interpreter makes!
On-CallOn-CallInterpreterInterpreter
On-SiteOn-SiteInterpreterInterpreter