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Workshops
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Workshop
D-5: How do we know our interpreters are uo to the job? Assessment and
certification
How Do We
Know Our Interpreters Are Up to the Job?
Assessment and Certification of Health Care Interpreters
As the diversity of languages reaching the doors of health care facilities
continues to increase and the demand for qualified interpreters becomes
more urgent, directors and coordinators of interpreter services are hard
pressed to assess the level of interpreting skills that potential interpreters
bring. The need for valid and reliable tools to assess interpreting skills
has become critical. At both the local and national levels, the call for
a process of certification has become a pressing issue. But while some
states are passing legislation addressing the issue of certification for
health care interpreters, there are many complex challenges to the development
of a valid, reliable, and equitable certification process that stand in
the way of a quick solution.
This session will begin by answering some general questions about assessment.
For example: What are the purposes of certification? How does assessment
for certification differ from assessment for screening and hiring? What
are the challenges in developing an assessment tool for certification
that is fair and equitable across different cultural-linguistic groups?
What principles of assessment contribute to the creation of an equitable
tool?
The issues raised in the above questions will then be examined through
the certification initiative of the Massachusetts Medical Interpreters
Association (MMIA). The MMIA has been working on the development of an
assessment tool for certification over the past five years. In 2002-3003,
with the assistance of the National Council on Interpreting in Health
Care (NCIHC), the MMIA conducted a formal pilot of a prototype assessment
instrument in Massachusetts and, with the collaboration of the California
Healthcare Interpreting Association, in California. This prototype instrument,
initially developed in the Spanish-English language pair, is designed
to assess basic interpreting skills, using methodologies that could be
adapted for a range of cultural-linguistic groups. The presentation on
the MMIA pilot will describe the areas of knowledge and skill that are
measured through the prototype instrument and the methodologies used to
measure these areas of knowledge and skills. It will focus on the results
and learnings from the pilot, highlighting such challenges as creating
the infrastructure for the reliable administration and scoring of the
test modules, implications for the training of health care interpreters,
generating a test development blueprint to ensure that successive versions
of the test are consistent and comparable in the same language pair and
across language pairs, and next steps in formalizing the tool as part
of a certification process for Massachusetts.
The session will then explore the national context for certification
by addressing the following questions. Is the field ready for national
certification? What needs to be in place in order for national certification
to be a viable option? How does certification fit into the broader context
of quality assurance? What assessment processes can be put in place until
national certification is available? Why are individual states or associations
developing their own certification processes and instruments? Why can’t
an instrument developed in one state be transported to another? Who is
best served by national certification – interpreters, patients, or
institutions?
Finally, the session will end with a discussion of the challenges related
to cost and to the creation of an infrastructure for the administration
and continued development of a certification process at both the local
and national levels.
Dr. Avery is a Senior Project Director at Education Development
Center, Inc. where she directed a three year project that developed a
27-credit college level certificate program to prepare bilingual adults
as health care interpreters. As a result of this project, she collaborated
with the Massachusetts Medical Interpreters Association in developing
its Medical Interpreting Standards of Practice which were published in
1996. As a member of the MMIA’s Certification Committee, she continues
to work on the development of a prototype assessment tool for certification
in Massachusetts. Dr. Avery is also a member of the Standards, Training,
and Certification Committee of the National Council on Interpreting in
Health Care. As a member of this committee, she has been involved in the
development of the National Code of Ethics for Health Care Interpreters
and is the principal author of the accompanying commentary on the code.
She has written articles on certification and the role of the interpreter
in health care settings.
Maria-Paz Beltran Avery, Ph.D.
Senior Project Director
Education Development Center, Inc.
55 Chapel Street
Newton, MA 02458
Phone: 617-618-2341
Fax: 617-969-7578
mavery@edc.org
www.edc.org/EEC
Cynthia E. Roat is a consultant/trainer on issues related to
language access in health care. She has been a trainer for over twenty
years, working for a decade in rural development programs in Latin America,
after which she earned a Masters degree in International Public Health
from the University of Washington in Seattle. Certified by the Washington
State Department of Social and Health Services for both medical and social
service interpreting, she has been a medical interpreter since 1992. She
has made significant contributions in the areas of training, program development,
policy formulation, advocacy and organizational outreach. Cindy is the
principle author of Bridging the Gap, currently the most widely offered
training for medical interpreters in the United States. She currently
serves as Chair of the Advisory Committee of the National Council on Interpreting
in Health Care, and is known nationally as an energetic advocate for health
care interpreting and language access in general.
Cynthia E. Roat, MPH
350 NW 189th St.
Shoreline, WA 98177
Phone: 206-546-1194
Fax: 253-540-3905
cindy.roat@alumni.williams.edu
Wilma Alvarado-Little, a medical interpreter and trainer with
19 years experience in the health care field, serves on the Board of Directors
for the Chicago Area Interpreter Referral Service, which provides interpreter
services for the deaf and hard of hearing populations. Former manager
of Interpreter Services at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago,
she also worked closely with the Chicago Health Outreach Immigrant and
Refugee Health Task Force. Currently the Co-chair of the National Council
on Interpretation in Health Care, she is also a member of the ASTM Language
Subcommittee, the Massachusetts Medical Interpreters Association, the
Guatemala Scholars Network, the Latin American Studies Association and
the American Translators Association. Ms. Alvarado-Little consults on
the implementation of hospital and community-based interpreter programs
and the role of the medical interpreter. She has been involved with the
Chicago area media in presenting public information on the importance
of the role and use of trained medical interpreters in providing quality
health care services.
Wilma Alvarado-Little
270 W. Lawrence St.
Albany, NY 12208
Phone: 773-301-6438
Fax: 518-459-3443
interpreter@walvarado-little.net
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