Language Interpreter Competencies

[psliney]

I have a question for those of you involved with hospital interpreters. Does your hospital/institution use any type of competency testing mechanism to insure that their interpreters are competent to translate into a foreign language? We use a group of community members on an on-call basis to come into the hospital to provide translation services for mosting Spanish-speaking only clients. We do not have a testing mechanism in place that can help us determine whether or not these interpreters have a good enough command of Spanish, as well as medical terminology to be interepreting accurately. Of course, the English-speaking nurse has no way of know whether or not the interpretation is accurate. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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Patricia Sliney, RN

Nurse On Call Manager

Goshen Health System

Goshen, Indiana

www.goshenhealth.com