http://www2.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3081860

Patient-interpreter services useful at local hospitals
By Annette Wells, Staff Writer

When a bus carrying two dozen Chinese tourists slammed into a parked fire engine along the 10 Freeway in Ontario in March, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center's emergency room became disaster central.
But in treating the 17 injured passengers, police, fire and medical staff at the San Bernardino County hospital in Colton had to contend with a language barrier between themselves and the passengers who spoke only Chinese.

To connect everyone, Arrowhead Regional deployed its multilingual staff, a tactic used by most of San Bernardino and Riverside counties' hospitals.

"Demographics have changed," said Caroline Swinton, patient relations coordinator at Community Hospital of San Bernardino.

"About 65 percent of our patients speak Spanish and a few others speak other languages," Swinton said. "Interpreter service is crucial to serving the needs of our patients."

Officials from area hospitals say the majority of the patients they serve speak a language other than English. According to a recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies, one in four American births is now to a foreign-born mother.

Hospitals that receive federal funding must provide interpreting and translation services to patients who don't speak English.

If a hospital doesn't have a staff member who can speak a certain language, doctors and nurses turn to a 24-hour over-the-phone service such as CyraCom, Language Line Services or Pacific Interpreters.

Though they are different companies, all essentially do the same thing. The doctor can call the service, usually from a special telephone with two handsets, one of which is for the patient. On the other end of the line is a certified medical interpreter, quite possibly located in another state.

Community Hospital of San Bernardino, Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in Pomona and St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino use CyraCom.

Arrowhead Regional, Loma Linda University Medical Center, Redlands Community Hospital and San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland use Language Line Services.

St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley uses Pacific Interpreters.

Arrowhead Regional has a list of employees who speak 18 different languages.

"We see a lot of non-English-speaking patients," said Sylvia Chen, a physician assistant in the labor and delivery department at Arrowhead Regional.

Languages spoken by the staff there include: Arabic, Bangla (Bangladesh), Cantonese, Chinese, Filipino, French, German, Llokano (Philippines), Indonesian, Korean, Nigerian, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog (Philippines), Urdu (Pakistan and India), Vietnamese and Yoruba (Nigeria).

"It is very important to be sensitive to our patients coming in," Chen said. "Most are already very scared. And being able to communicate with them is something that we take a lot of pride in."

Early one recent morning, Lucila Vega, of Ontario, gave birth to Albert, her third child, at Arrowhead Regional.

Vega, who understands some English but can only speak Spanish, said it was very important that she had an interpreter during her child's birth.

"I understood English, but I could not respond," she said in Spanish as interpreted by registered nurse Martha Lopez.

"As soon as I came in, I had a nurse with me that spoke Spanish. If I didn't have one, I could have misunderstood something and it could have affected the health of the baby or myself," Vega said.

Not only does interpreter service provide effective communication between patient and physician, it also helps comfort all involved, said Serena Luce, a physician assistant in labor and delivery at Arrowhead Regional.

During her duties following the bus accident, Luce said she noticed a number of frightened patients.

"There was a lot of yelling and different languages being spoken," she said. "Chinese people speak loudly. Being raised Chinese, I knew this was their form of expression and was able to calm them."

Wray Ryback, a patient representative who oversees translation services at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, said the hospital uses both CyraCom and its multilingual staff to reach patients.

However, only clinically trained staff are used as patient interpreters.

The idea is not to put patients in a situation where they may become confused. The telephone interpreter service is less risky.

Redlands Community Hospital has taken a different approach. A few years ago, the hospital tested employees to see if they could act as interpreters.

"About 10 people passed for Spanish and one for Vietnamese," said Jane Dreher, a hospital spokeswoman. "For all other languages, we use Language Line Services."

Dreher continued, "if an interpreter isn't available, we go to the telephone."

Located in Monterey, Language Line can provide interpreter service in more than 150 languages, said company spokesman Dale Hansman.

Access is simple. Participating hospitals receive cards that list the offered languages, each printed in the language and identified by a number.

Non-English-speaking patients who arrive at the hospital are handed the card. When patients recognize a language, they can read: "Point to your language. An interpreter will be called."

A nurse or other hospital staffer will dial the identified language number and be connected with an interpreter.

"We have 22 certified medical interpreters who represent 99 percent of languages most often requested. The bottom line is that if someone needs medical interpretation, they can get it in 22 different languages," Hansman said. "About 65 (percent) to 70 percent of our requests are for Spanish interpreters, and we get millions each year."

Hansman said interpreters work eight-hour shifts and hospitals pay a certain amount per phone call.

With CyraCom, Swinton said patients are screened at check-in for their language. That information follows them to whatever service they need in the hospital.

CyraCom telephones are on each unit and connection takes as little as one minute.

"We do track the various times that (CyraCom) is used, and it's primarily used in the emergency department. Labor and delivery is also very busy," Ryback said. "But it is something utilized throughout the hospital."

The hospital has never encountered a problem where the patient spoke a language that couldn't be interpreted, she said.

In the last couple of months, Pomona Valley Hospital has requested interpreters through CyraCom for Farsi, Russian, Mandarin, Samoan, Chinese, Laotian, Portuguese and Punjabi.