Interpreter Services

Jordan Hospital provides medical interpreters certified in five different languages including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Vietnamese, and Italian. The hospital also provides American Sign Language interpreters for the deaf and hard of hearing. In the event a patient requires interpreting for another language, a telephone service is available that offers up to 140 languages. Interpreter service at Jordan Hospital is free and ensures that non-English speaking patients receive the same level of medical care as English speakers, and that deaf and hard of hearing patients also receive the same level of care as all other patients.

The office for interpreter services handles all requests from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Nursing supervisors respond to requests beyond regular hours.

Once the hospital staff identifies the patient’s primary language, the interpreter services coordinator or nursing supervisor is contacted. At this point, every attempt will be made to contact a "live" interpreter. Screened, trained, fluent, in-house interpreters are used before community interpreters are called. While waiting for a fluent, community interpreter, a non-fluent in-house interpreter, or Language Line Services (operator assisted) is used to assure the patient that proper services are being provided.

If a patient is deaf or hard of hearing, the interpreter services department will contact the Massachusetts Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing for a qualified medical interpreter. While waiting for a qualified interpreter, paper and pencil may be used to communicate with deaf or hard of hearing patients. Patients with some hearing capacity may be assisted by a hearing amplification device.

Deaf or hard of hearing patients, if admitted, are offered a closed captioned television. All hospital rooms have closed captioned availability. Deaf and hard of hearing patients are also offered the use of a TTY/TDD phone.

All foreign language interpreters receive certification from a medical interpreter training program, as well as ongoing in-service training.