Covenant’s Interpreter Services helps doctors, nurses and patients be able to communicate with each other at all of Covenant’s campuses.
“Communication is very important. Any little mistake could be horrible,” Rafael Marin with Interpretive Services said.
“We have around 20 that are qualified medical interpreters,” Marin said. “They are all over the place, most of them are nurses, happen to be bilingual.”
There are a few different pieces of technology they use. One piece of equipment is something staff can wear that directly connects them with an interpreter.
“They just push this button, which is the call button, you’ll press it once, and say ‘call Pacific Interpreters’ and it will connect you,” Marin said.
Another thing they have is a dual-hand set phone. This is something they have in almost every room, according to Marin.
“Basically, we have an extra hand set, when you need interpretive services, you will give this to the patient, and you will utilize left side,” he said.
Marin said they are also using tablets as well, using video call technology to be able to connect with a live interpreter.
“As soon as they hear their own language, it’s a sigh of relief, all the weight off my shoulder, now I’m able to communicate, now I’m able to understand what the doctor is saying, now I’m able to ask questions and get the answers to understand what’s going on,” Marin said.
