Abstract
The Health Care Interpreter Network (HCIN) is a collaborative of hospitals and providers that share the services of their trained language interpreters over a video and voice network. Its voice/video technology facilitates very rapid connection (about 12 s) to qualified medical interpreters for 15 spoken languages plus American Sign Language. The vast majority of the HCIN interpreting is done in the outpatient clinics rung by the county facilities or teaching hospitals.
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Notes
- 1.
Participating hospitals/health systems included: Alameda County Medical Center, Contra Costa Regional Medical Center, San Francisco General Hospital, San Joaquin General Hospital, San Mateo Medical Center, and Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.
- 2.
The California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) works as a catalyst to fulfill the promise of better health care for all Californians. It supports ideas and innovations that improve quality, increase efficiency, and lower the costs of care.
- 3.
Over $3,500,000 of this was provided by CHCF grants. Additional grants or equipment contributions were from the Department of Commerce Technology Opportunity Project and Futijsu.
- 4.
HCIN hospitals can also choose to “sell” interpreter minutes to networks outside of HCIN. In the last 8 months of 2010, HCIN member hospitals sold 14,000 min to other network hospitals.
- 5.
Providers should be tested and qualified to provide care to patients in a language other than English.
- 6.
These provider training programs have received significant funding from Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit Programs.
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O’Neill, D.D., Anthony, S., Laws, M. (2013). Every Language Now. In: Berkowitz, L., McCarthy, C. (eds) Innovation with Information Technologies in Healthcare. Health Informatics. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4327-7_13
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