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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Firoozeh Molaparast Vali, PhD and Annette Lombardo, MPH. Research Department, New Jersey Hospital Association/HRET, 760 Alexander Road, Princeton, NJ 08543, 609-275-4146, fvali@njha.com

There are at least 720,000 people in New Jersey who are deaf or hard of hearing. As part of legislative mandates and regulatory requirements, hospitals must ensure individuals with these disabilities have access to all programs and services, and this requires effective communication. NJHA's Interpreter/Translation Services Task Force was established in 2005 to evaluate current communication services provided by hospitals to D/HH patients and examine strategies for successful development/implementation of standardized information, training and resources to support hospitals. As part of these efforts, all New Jersey hospitals were surveyed on their current policies, practices, difficulties in arranging interpreter services, barriers and needs for resources. Of 64 participating hospitals (67% response rate), most reported assessing patients' communication needs at registration, obtaining their preferences and recording in medical charts, and serving about 1-50 D/HH patients a year who need interpreter services. The technologies most frequently used were TTY, signage and captioning. Not many hospitals reported using video relay or automated speech recognition technologies. The time for arranging interpreter services ranged between 30 minutes to over 3 hours. Major perceived difficulties were insufficient availability of qualified/certified interpreters, scarce funding for purchasing technology and/or hiring interpreters and inadequate staff training. Findings were used to develop an assessment tool to help hospitals identify gaps in policies, procedures and staff training, and to recommend design of standardized training/educational programs, establishment of a centralized pool of interpreters for timely access and cost savings and working with Medicaid/Medicare/commercial plans to seek reimbursement for these services.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• Describe the communication needs of deaf and heard of hearing patients.
• List current hospital services and use of technologies serving D/HH patients.
• Identify hospital difficulties in arranging interpreter services for D/HH patients.
• Explain hospital needs and gaps.
• Describe perceived types of tools and resources that can support hospitals’ efforts to serve patients with these disabilities.
• Discuss the findings and recommendations for the next steps to ensure improved communication services provided by hospitals to D/HH patients.

Keywords: Access and Services, Deaf Patients

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No