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September 03, 2005
Solution for hospital language barriers
Doctors and their deaf and hard-of-hearing patients who need to speak using ASL, as well as Spanish-speaking patients, can now easily communicate through a new video interpreting service. The Language Line Video Interpreting Service provides hospitals immediate access to ASL and medically-certified Spanish language interpreters anytime, anyplace, and only pay a per-minute fee. More languages will be offered soon.

After a year-long beta test, working closely with a select group of their hospital customers, Language Line Services has developed an easy to use, high quality video interpreting solution that meets the special needs of healthcare providers.

"This new service helps fill a very real need within virtually every hospital across the country," commented Phil Speciale, Language Line Services' Vice President of Marketing. "Deaf or hard-of-hearing patients can sometimes wait for hours before a qualified ASL interpreter is finally available. Language Line Video Interpreting Service can either supplement an existing in-house interpreter staff, or be used as a stand-alone solution. Now hospitals can provide on-demand access to certified ASL and Spanish interpreters, 24x7, while saving thousands of dollars a year."

Within moments of making their requests, hospital professionals and their patients can now access RID-certified American Sign Language and Medically Certified Spanish-speaking interpreters using state-of-the-art videoconferencing equipment. This easy-to-use system provides on-demand access to interpreters with the touch of a single button.

What Language Line Video Interpreting customers are saying about this new service: 1 director of guest services at an acute care facility in the northeast stated that by using video interpreting, his nursing staff no longer spends time searching for interpreters, and keeps those of his team who speak Spanish from being taken off their units to assist other units. He also mentioned "it helps the hospital achieve its 'Length of Stay' objectives and distinguishes his facility when marketing their services to the health care community."

A doctor who regularly uses the service noted, "the flexibility and visual contact added much to the voice contact for interpretation, and that the interpreter was professional, well versed medically, very attentive, and made his patient feel extremely important."

Another caregiver commented that her facility's staff was happy with how quickly and easily they could use the Language Line Rover, the mobile video monitor/camera/speaker combination tool used to reach and display the interpreter. Yet another participant noted that she had seen the amount of time that live, face-to-face interpreters spend interpreting, about 10 minutes interpreting for a surgical patient before the procedure, about 10 minutes afterward, and in the meantime the interpreter can be sitting in the waiting room for hours charging her facility for the whole time. She believed the potential cost-savings for using the Rover could be enormous.

Language Line Services provides the actual videoconferencing equipment free of charge to its health care customers. Hospitals need only pay a monthly minimum usage charge and a monthly equipment maintenance fee. Usage above the minimum fee is billed at a cost-effective per-minute rate for both ASL and Spanish language interpreting (additional languages will soon be offered). Language Line Video Interpreting Service can save hospitals thousands of dollars a year by supplementing or replacing face-to-face interpreters.

For more information on this innovative new service, call 1-800-752-6096 or visit http://www.languageline.com/vis.php.

From WLNS.com