Diverse Salt Lake population provides much-needed interpretation services at hospitals, clinics

SALT LAKE CITY — As the population of the greater Salt Lake Valley continues to grow more diverse, local hospitals and clinics are finding the need to provide a wider base of interpretation and translation services to patrons and patients alike.

While some languages, such as Burmese and Tinka (Sudanese) still linger on the outskirts, others, like Spanish, Russian and even Bosnian and Vietnamese, are needed on a daily basis within the region.

"In the last 10 years, the demographics in Utah have changed drastically," Angela Outzen, director of interpretation services at Intermountain Healthcare, said last week. With the growing Hispanic population — which now makes up 12 percent of the city's population, according to the latest census data — it is necessary to employ at least 14 full-time medical interpreters who are highly proficient in Spanish and English, to be on-site at any one of five Intermountain facilities in the Urban Central Region at any given time, she said.

MountainStar Healthcare's Timpanogos Regional Hospital used to ask newly hired employees to disclose whether they spoke languages other than English, and spokeswoman Audrey Glasby said so many were "more than willing to help out when they were needed."

But she said MountainStar is moving to a video conferencing system with contracted interpreters to provide more professional care.

With the available and growing base of returned missionaries in the area, Glasby said the hospital was able to satisfy a large number of foreign language interpretation requests with the on-hand experience of employees, but the medical terminology is sometimes too complex.

"They've returned from missions to multiple countries around the world and they are able to step in on a pretty immediate basis," she said. Contracting with other agencies will increase the language base even more and not rely on employees as much for interpretation services.

Intermountain has more than 50 qualified bilingual employees who help to offer interpretation services in the top 10 requested languages: Russian, Vietnamese, Bosnian, American Sign Language, Chinese-Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, Tongan, Farsi, Arabic, and southeast Asian languages including Laotian and Khmer (Cambodian). Bilingual doctors and nurses are also utilized at times for their language experience.

Outzen said employees who help are required to participate in extensive and rigorous training.

For the remainder of needed interpretation services, which are free to patients, both the MountainStar and Intermountain network hospitals contract with outside interpretation agencies, locally and out of state.