8:00 – 9:15 am: Registration
9:15 am: Announcement of Ernest “Tony” Winsor Award
Presented by Lisa Colombo, DNP, MHA, RN, Executive Vice Chancellor, ForHealth Consulting, UMass Chan Medical School
9:30 – 10:30 am: Keynote
Main Ballroom
Language access in health care has come a long way over the past 30 years. Understanding the history helps us focus on the work ahead in continuing to elevate its importance as a health equity imperative in an ever changing sociopolitical environment. We will explore the challenges and effective strategies to address these challenges.
Objectives:
- Understand the history of language access;
- Examine the key challenges ahead;
- Learn strategies to advocate for appropriate language access.
10:30 – 11:00 am: Break
11:00 am – 12:30 pm: Session 1
This workshop will focus on culturally sensitive care and language access, how they are essential for supporting diverse patients with chronic and serious illness. By respecting cultural values and providing clear communication in the patient’s preferred language, providers can improve trust, care quality and health outcomes.
Supporting the role of medical interpreters both individually and as valued members of the care team; to engage adults in culturally sensitive chronic and serious illness care conversations to help a patients document their care preferences in MA planning documents.
Objectives:
- Interpreters Roles in Chronic and Serious Illness Management;
- Discuss the challenges and barriers of helping individuals among diverse culture;
- Discuss the scope of the role and being part of the team as Cultural Ambassador;
- Cultural Explorations and Self-Care: Cultural and decisions making, death and dying, self-care and role expectations.
As part of the process to update the National Standards of Practice (NSoP) and National Code of Ethics (NCoE) the National Ethics and Standards Work Group of the NCIHC held several focus groups to hear from interpreters and other stakeholders. Join us to hear about the proposed changes to the National Standards of Practice and National Code of Ethics that grew from all the ideas people shared with us.
In this session we will address the following:
- a key “paradigm” shift from describing healthcare interpreting simply as a role, to redefining what a healthcare interpreter does as a practice profession aligned with other practice professions in the medical sphere;
- the understanding that healthcare interpreting upholds key values related to desired outcomes for any interpreted encounter in healthcare;
- understanding the relationship between values, ethical principles, and standards of practice and how to draw on them to choose the best course of action in a specific situation. The session will also clarify why the NCOE and NSOP are not to be seen as inflexible rules. Rather, we will present a way of using the NCOE and NSOP as guidelines to help evaluate the’ options in any given situation, and to choose the most appropriate action(s) that are in line with the value(s) and goal(s) that are most important in that specific situation.
Objectives:
- Gain an overview of the National Ethics and Standards Work Group Focus group process;
- Learn what a practice profession is and why it is important to see healthcare interpreting as a practice profession;
- Understand the relationship between values, ethical principles, and standards of practice and how they help interpreters make good choices;
- Understand why it is important to know and adhere to the values of the healthcare interpreting profession in order to make good choices about what to do in difficult interpreting situations.
The workshop is for working interpreters in all fields (court, healthcare, community and educational). There will be sample participatory and interactive exercises recommended for improving performance for attendees to sample, covering these four areas: Focus and Attention; Memory; Speed; and Register.
Interpreters will learn how to document and track their progress with these exercises by learning how to identify errors, measure progress, assess improvement and track individual aspects of performance. Attendees will be shown how to set-up and individualized metrics worksheet for tracking their individual progress and skills improvement over time. More importantly, they’ll learn how to interpret their individual results, select appropriate targeted drills to make the changes/improvements to skills they want to improve. Links to many free online training resources, practice material, phone apps, and technical tools will be shared.
Objectives:
- Focus and Attention – Learn how to improve focus and attention, participate in two different methods;
- Listening – Participate in a progressive exercise;
- Memory – Learn how to improve memory with expanded sequences, and how to modify the sequences for increasing degree of difficulty in vocabulary and register;
- Speed – Participate in a progressive exercise and learn how to modify the exercise for an increasing degree of difficulty.
This presentation aims to provide medical interpreters with a foundational understanding of congenital heart surgery, focusing on the key medical concepts, terminology, and cultural considerations essential for effective interpretation. Participants will learn about the various types of congenital heart defects, the surgical procedures involved, and the post-operative care typically required. Emphasis will be placed on accurate interpretation of complex medical terms, ensuring clear communication between patients, families, and healthcare professionals. Additionally, the presentation will guide the interpreter through the different conversations that are held with families of children undergoing heart surgery, from diagnosis, through surgery, and to discharge. This session is designed to improve interpreters’ confidence and competence in managing this specialized area of healthcare interpretation.
Objectives:
- Identify the structures of the normal heart and their function;
- Acquire bilingual terminology specific to congenital heart defects and surgery;
- Learn about the most common congenital heart defects;
- Learn about the people and the processes you will meet when interpreting for parents of children undergoing congenital heart surgery.
This workshop will provide an opportunity for interpreters to discuss and understand basic vocabulary related to gender and sexual identity. Participants will be able to acquire vocabulary and practice interpretation skills. This workshop will be facilitated in Spanish.
Objectives:
- Distinguish between gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and sex assigned at birth;
- Identify societal expectations that are placed on people based on their sex assigned at birth and the impact that those expectations can have;
- Acquire vocabulary in Spanish and English that relates to gender and sexual identity;
- Practice interpretation skills.
12:30 – 1:30 pm: Lunch & Networking
1:30 – 3:00 pm: Session 2
The goal of this presentation is to provide experienced medical interpreters with knowledge and skills specific to the delivery of effective, reliable, and comprehensive interpreting in adolescent sexual health settings. The curriculum outlines a theoretical and practical understanding of the multiple roles of the interpreter as well as relevant clinical, ethical, cultural, and linguistic considerations in the sexual health field, specifically in adolescence. Additionally, the curriculum will enhance the medical interpreters’ ability to understand and render culturally responsive communication.
Objectives:
- Increase understanding of sexual health related issues;
- Acquire and utilize sexual health related terminology and vocabulary in Spanish;
- Enhance skills to work in adolescent sexual health settings;
- Apply the roles of the medical interpreter (i.e., conduit, message clarifier, cultural broker, patient advocate) in sexual health settings.
As part of the process to update the National Standards of Practice (NSoP) and National Code of Ethics (NCoE) the National Ethics and Standards Work Group of the NCIHC held several focus groups to hear from interpreters and other stakeholders. Join us to hear about the proposed changes to the National Standards of Practice and National Code of Ethics that grew from all the ideas people shared with us.
In this session we will address the following:
- a key “paradigm” shift from describing healthcare interpreting simply as a role, to redefining what a healthcare interpreter does as a practice profession aligned with other practice professions in the medical sphere;
- the understanding that healthcare interpreting upholds key values related to desired outcomes for any interpreted encounter in healthcare;
- understanding the relationship between values, ethical principles, and standards of practice and how to draw on them to choose the best course of action in a specific situation. The session will also clarify why the NCOE and NSOP are not to be seen as inflexible rules. Rather, we will present a way of using the NCOE and NSOP as guidelines to help evaluate the’ options in any given situation, and to choose the most appropriate action(s) that are in line with the value(s) and goal(s) that are most important in that specific situation.
Objectives:
- Gain an overview of the National Ethics and Standards Work Group Focus group process;
- Learn what a practice profession is and why it is important to see healthcare interpreting as a practice profession;
- Understand the relationship between values, ethical principles, and standards of practice and how they help interpreters make good choices;
- Understand why it is important to know and adhere to the values of the healthcare interpreting profession in order to make good choices about what to do in difficult interpreting situations.
The interpreting field is undergoing rapid changes and facing new challenges including artificial intelligence (AI), more utilization of remote interpreting, and competition from abroad. For interpreters, staying in a field they are still so passionate about is becoming harder. Employers face the dual challenge of attracting and retaining qualified workers despite tighter profit margins, and making the case for in-person, human interpreters to clients tempted by cheaper, potentially dangerous innovations. For advocates and leaders of professional associations, envisioning a thriving interpreting field is increasingly difficult. What would it take to develop a truly thriving field where interpreters are deeply valued, fairly compensated, and included as part of the team; employers can retain talented professionals and partner with them to advance language access; and professional associations are making structural changes to advance the field? How do we come together and leverage our unique strengths and positional assets to build and grow a thriving profession in the face of changes and challenges?
Objectives:
- Interpreters will gain a deeper understanding of challenges in the field; grapple with how to sustain their work and promote their wellbeing in the face of burnout, workplace challenges, and changing dynamics in the field; and have the opportunity to build community and foster solidarity with other interpreters;
- Employers will gain a deeper understanding of challenges in the field and how they can play a role in sustaining their employees by taking steps to address burnout, turnover, and worker shortages, thereby enabling them to keep more contracts and advance language access;
- Advocates and leaders of professional associations will gain a deeper understanding of challenges in the field and how they can support employers and workers in sustaining the field and promoting a collaborative and inclusive field;
- All attendees will engage in reimagining the field and visioning a thriving interpreter profession, drawing on their own positionality as workers, employers, or advocates, bringing in their own tools, strengths, and power, and building bridges.
A hands-on workshop equipping interpreters and CoNavigators with innovative techniques and strategies to ensure seamless communication and collaboration with DeafBlind individuals. Participants will engage in simulated scenarios to develop confidence in navigating complex situations, addressing safety protocols, and practicing effective tactile communication. By the end of the workshop, attendees will be better prepared to provide high-quality, empathetic support to DeafBlind consumers in various settings.
Objectives:
- Recognize four different interpreting settings and identify various setups for working with DeafBlind clients (VRS/Medical/Conference/Education);
- Name three misconceptions about working with DeafBlind clients;
- Describe how hearing interpreters can work with a CDI, CoNavigator, and DeafBlind clients in various settings;
- Demonstrate using visual examples, how they will interpret for DB clients with varying degrees of vision loss;
- Identify two personal beliefs/values that may impact/influence their interpretations.
3:00 – 3:30 pm: Break
3:30 – 4:30 pm: Session 3
Contemporary societies are transition societies originating from the growing migrant movements and refugee flows, and this dynamic diversity creates a complex network where healthcare accessibility is paramount. Conflicting forces, asymmetries, and cultural and linguistic discordance create strong barriers to communication in healthcare settings, putting this fundamental human right at risk.
In this scenario, intercultural and interlinguistic mediation plays a crucial role in the provision of health equity: both healthcare interpreters/translators and healthcare providers can bridge the gap to achieve an effective therapeutic rapport, ensuring patient trust, compliance, and safety.
This paper addresses the case study of the Portuguese-speaking community currently in MA, and how these barriers are being approached. The role, ethics, and responsibility of the medical mediator are discussed based on the results obtained from in-depth interviews to stakeholders, a patient community survey, and an observational study of an interpreter-mediated medical encounter.
The study aims to analyze this phenomenon to raise awareness to the relevance of culturally appropriate healthcare access for a diverse patient’s community.
Objectives:
- Understand cultural and linguistic barriers to multicultural healthcare access;
- Identify the role, ethics, and responsibility of the medical mediator – translator and interpreter;
- Recognize the challenges of the mediated encounter for both healthcare mediators and healthcare providers;
- Advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in multicultural healthcare access.
Linguistic and culturally competent care is one of the social determinates of health and the public health interpreter plays a crucial role in making that happen. In this presentation, we will discuss what public health is and what challenges and opportunities exist for interpreters working in a public health setting. We will review the ethics and protocols that are standard for all medical interpreters, but that need to be well understood and applied in a setting that can, at times, seem casual. Lastly, we will discuss what steps we can take, as interpreters and language professionals, to improve language access in our organization.
Objectives:
- List ways in which working as a staff interpreter in public health is different from working in other settings;
- Identify the ethics and protocols that apply to different situations encountered in public health settings;
- Describe steps you can take to improve the language access program in your organization;
- Identify public health programs and how best to prepare for specific vocabulary.
Using a “from the community, for the community” approach, this Roundtable will focus on how healthcare organizations can tap into the power of staff interpreters as multilingual digital content advisors to advance health equity in a linguistically diverse population. The team will share lived experiences from their work as staff interpreters and social media co-administrators and content creators for CHA’s Portuguese, Spanish, and Haitian Creole Facebook pages.
Objectives:
- Establishing a multilingual social media presence for your healthcare organization;
- Demonstrating that staff interpreters are best positioned to synthesize local and international;
- Upskilling your interpreter team as community catalysts in the digital era;
- Help create health equity by using social media as a tool to educate LOTE communities.
Drugs or other products that affect blood coagulation are often discussed in medical encounters. In order to guarantee accuracy during these types of interpretation sessions, interpreters must understand the mechanism by which certain products affect coagulation, some interactions between other drugs or food with anticoagulants, and many other important side effects that affect patients’ quality of life. This session will focus on increasing understanding of the blood coagulation process and products affecting it as well as important aspects of interpreting coagulation-related medical sessions.
Objectives:
- Review the general process of blood coagulation;
- Review the general process of blood plug formation and fibrinolysis;
- Review the mechanism by which certain drugs and food affect blood coagulation;
- Identify certain aspects of interpreting medical sessions related to coagulation.
The project PONTES | BRIDGE I – developed by the working group “Bridging Communities” at CELGA-ILTEC research center, in Coimbra/Portugal – aims to foster the dialogue between academia, practitioners, and target audiences to raise awareness about the crucial importance of communication as well as the central role of the interpreter/language mediator in critical contexts such as healthcare in multiple aspects.
Building on an initial debate with and between several stakeholders – a doctor, a social worker, a medical interpreter, a director of the government migrant integration department, a foreign patient, and an expert researcher – the project aims to identify the problems and challenges of interlingual and intercultural communication in healthcare contexts and to encourage collaboration.
The debate resulted in a list of initiatives with high potential for implementation in the short, medium, and long term, including both collaboration protocols between University of Coimbra and the healthcare unit and protocols between two different research groups. The protocols target the production of resources for interpreters/language mediators and healthcare providers, the design of a cross-disciplinary training framework, and the organization and delivery of awareness-raising actions for providers and hospital administration, among other possible outcomes.
Objectives:
- Raise the awareness for the importance of linguistic and cultural competency in healthcare communication;
- Raise the awareness for the role of intercultural and interlinguistic mediation in healthcare settings;
- Gather stakeholders in order to foster their collaboration and sharing of resources;
- Share the results and outcomes.
Federal disability and language access laws mandate hospitals to provide Deaf patients with access to effective communication. Despite a hospital’s best efforts to ensure ASL interpreters are available, complaints and lawsuits persist, and patients often bear the burden of advocating for equitable and appropriate accommodations. This workshop presents findings from a nationwide study examining language access services in U.S. hospitals, revealing both effective practices and gaps in care. By applying the Institute of Medicine’s six domains of quality—safety, timeliness, efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and patient-centeredness—this session provides actionable best practice strategies that hospitals may consider implementing within their institutions. Participants will leave with insights to enhance compliance and build inclusive systems for Deaf individuals seeking care within their healthcare systems.
Objectives:
- Identify the key factors that prevent Deaf patients from accessing effective communication in U.S. hospitals;
- Analyze the current state of hospital language access services;
- Describe existing inequities and gaps in compliance with legal requirements and evaluate their impact on Deaf patients’ experiences and health outcomes;
- Devise an actionable plan to implement patient-centered strategies that best meet deaf patient needs.
English 
Spanish