By Heather Svokos

In the eyes of a patient, a doctor or a nurse can often be likened to a superhero, wielding the power to heal.

But for patients who don’t speak the same language as their caregivers, there’s someone equally powerful who can save the day. Armed not with scalpels and stethoscopes, but with the power of language, the interpreters in the Language and Translation Services Department can make a world of difference.

The department employs a staff of interpreters: 16 who speak Spanish [which accounts for about 90 percent of interpreter requests], one who speaks Vietnamese, one Hindi and Urdu. To meet an ever-increasing demand, and for interpretation in other languages, physicians and nurses are also encouraged to reach out to the Language Line – a service available 24 hours a day to provide an interpreter over the phone.

Through the interpreters and written translations, the department provides crucial language services to the hospitals, hospital-based clinics, and the ambulatory clinics at UT Southwestern.

The Language and Translation Services Department team

Having such a robust team helps prevent problems that could arise from practices such as relying on family members to interpret, said Fabrizio Gatti, who retired earlier this year as Manager of the Language and Translation Services Department.

“When you use relatives, the patient thinks: ‘Oh, my son is going to translate,’ but then they get stuck with difficult questions and medical jargon, and they either can’t answer the question, or maybe the daughter doesn’t want to answer the question in front of the mother,” Mr. Gatti said.

Sometimes these people are known as “heritage speakers” – people who don’t have a formal education in the language.

Donald Cole, who came to UT Southwestern in 2004 as a Spanish interpreter, said there are simple things a patient could miss without someone to interpret. “They could miss crucial things such as discharge instructions and medication orders,” Mr. Cole said. “It can make things complicated. So we wave our flag all the time: Here we are!”

Developments in the last several years have made the department and its services much more visible than in years past, said Karen Elmore, MSN, RN, NE-BC, Nurse Manager of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. That’s thanks in part to a major directive issued by the Joint Commission, a health care certification and accreditation organization.

“The Joint Commission’s directive asserted that non-English speaking patients in English-speaking hospitals deserve the same communication as anybody else,” said Ms. Elmore, who is also the co-chair of the Provision of Care Chapter for the Joint Commission.

Ms. Elmore said UT Southwestern already had many of the tools in-house, but they weren’t necessarily being used to their fullest capacity – notably the Language Line. When her team began to educate staff on the Language Line, they had about one request for interpretation a month.

“We educated employees on all units and clinics about the service, and put Language Line stickers on the phones so people wouldn’t have to look for the number,” Ms. Elmore said. “Anybody could use it: physicians, nurses, PCTs. After that, we had a steady increase. Now, there can be more than 250 to 300 calls a month. We pay for it, but it certainly is a great service, and it keeps our patients informed and happy.”

Along with interpreters and the Language Line, staffers also have access to iPads for Sign Language, and – a 2016 addition in the William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital – video-interpreting services.

“With this technology, our interpreters are able to interpret using their computers and the TV screen in the patient rooms,” Mr. Cole said. “It saves time, and therefore helps the department to manage the increasing volume of requests.” With the expanded team, technology and staff education, Ms. Elmore said the process has gotten exponentially better.

“It’s been gratifying to see that no one has an excuse to not communicate completely with someone who doesn’t speak their language,” she said, adding that the interpreters are professional, polite, and patient. “Sometimes it takes a while to go through all the information,” she said. “They really do have patience, and they’re responsive. They do a great job.”