National Certification for Healthcare Interpreters

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National Certification for Healthcare Interpreters

• IMIA Conference
• Boston, October 6, 2007

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Expert Panel on Certification

• http//homepage.mac.com/brucedowning/FileSharing5.
  html Downloadable PDF file

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National Medical Interpreter Certification Survey

• www.nmictf.org

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Panelists

• Holly Mikkelson, moderator
• Virginia Pérez-Santalla, American Translators
  Association (ATA)
• Laurie Swabey, Registry of Interpreters for the
  Deaf (RID)
• Jane Kontrimas, International Medical
  Interpreters Association (IMIA)
• Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, National Council on
  Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC)
• Rosario Nevado, California Healthcare
  Interpreting Association (CHIA )

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American Translators Association

• http//www.atanet.org/index.php

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Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf

• http//www.rid.org/

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International Medical Interpreters Association

• http//www.imiaml.org/

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National Council on Interpreting in Health Care

• http//www.ncihc.org/

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California Healthcare Interpreting Association

• http//cms.chiaonline.org/

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Question 1

• Do you feel that efforts to move towards
  national, standardized, certification are well
  coordinated between your organizations and
  others?  Or at some point, does some organization
  need to own the process to create a national,
  standardized certification, just as RID does for
  Interpreters for the Deaf?  What process can we
  all agree on to figure out who will own and
  therefore lead these efforts? What ideas exist to
  establish an independent third-party arbitrator
  to guide the process and ensure an equitable
  representation of all stakeholders? (from New
  Hampshire)

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Question 2

• Most certifications or licensures act as
  limiters on the size of the available pool of
  qualified candidates, and consequently affect the
  supply/demand forces at work in that labor
  marketplace.  Does our industry have plans to
  develop supply cost models (for forecasting
  purposes) to assess the potential impact of
  national certification on interpreter cost and
  interpreter availability?  If supply cost models
  suggested higher costs, or reduced availability
  of qualified healthcare interpreters and
  therefore longer wait times to get an interpreter
  for providers and patients, would your
  organization continue to support a national
  certification? (from California)

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Question 3

• I would like to know how certification would
  affect the medical interpreters' status, in terms
  of liability, benefits and security.  Would
  certified medical interpreters be required to
  have malpractice insurance, join a union,
  etc..... and if so, who would pay for it?  Has
  anyone computed the cost of these benefits and
  figured a raise that would compensate for
  inflation and any costs for the past several
  years? (from Massachusetts)

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Question 4

• How are stakeholders defined? What mechanisms
  will be used during this process to maintain
  communication and updates to all stakeholders and
  interested parties? (from California)

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Question 5

• How will language pairs to be certified be
  selected? Assuming all language pairs will not be
  certified in the short term, what provisions will
  be made for those language pairs that are not
  subject to certification? (from California)

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Question 6

• What kind of specific requirements do you think
  are necessary for certification of
  telephone interpreters in medical settings? Same
  question for video interpreters in medical
  settings. (from Japan)

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Thank you!