We’re Speaking Their Language(s)

Thousands of patients each month come into a Hartford HealthCare facility for medical care, frightened they won’t be understood or can’t understand the instructions our teams give them. Their English is either basic or nonexistent, but their need — and their right, by law — for safe, quality care is undeniable.

Speech bubbles reading"ni hao," "salaam," "hi," and "hola."

To better serve non-English speaking patients and their families, including those who are deaf and hard of hearing, Hartford HealthCare recently made some key updates to translation and interpretations services:

  • October, we switched to Propio One for interpretation and translation services.
  • A new partnership with the West Hartford-based American School for the Deaf also means we now offer in-person American Sign Language interpretation.

With these changes, we saw the following in November:

  • 18,971 Total requests for video remote interpretation (VRI), over the phone interpretation (OPI) and telehealth.
  • 14,452 Requests were for Spanish.
  • 67 Unique languages were accessed by patients and healthcare colleagues.
  • 277,266 Total minutes of translation were provided.
  • 3 Top languages for phone and video translation were Spanish, Haitian Creole and Portuguese.