Los Angeles, Calif., August 27, 2008 – Nearly one in three Los Angeles County residents face a language barrier which makes communication difficult in medical settings. In 2008, Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center expanded their Video Medical Interpreter (VMI) system – a system that provides quick and easy on-screen access to interpreter services for patients who have limited English proficiency (LEP) – with a $1 million grant provided by L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation’s largest public health plan, through the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.   

 

Rancho Los Amigos is the first hospital in Southern California and the first rehabilitation hospital in the world to implement a wireless VMI system, which allows patients who speak little or no English to communicate with their doctors and therapists through an on-screen interpreter. The system has increased patient access to interpreters and interpreter productivity by 50 percent.

 

 “Rancho is a world-class rehabilitation hospital, and has been on the forefront of ensuring its patients receive culturally and linguistically appropriate care,” said Howard Kahn, CEO at L.A. Care. “This $1 million grant through L.A. Care’s Community Health Investment Fund allows Rancho to improve access to health care services for its LEP patients and serve them in an efficient and effective way.”

 

 “Rancho Los Amigos has a very diverse patient population, and about half are limited English proficient,” said Lily Wong, director of the Language and Culture Resource Center at Rancho Los Amigos. “The L.A. Care grant allows us to implement the VMI fully, improving patient-provider communication, increasing quality of care, reducing medical errors and increasing patient satisfaction. We now are able to have full-time VMI interpreters taking calls from our in-house call center versus having to request them from outside sources.”

 

Within Los Angeles County, the VMI system serves LEP patients from 89 countries in languages such as Spanish, Armenian, Korean, Mandarin and American Sign Language. The VMI system also allows participating hospitals and health care providers in the Health Care Interpreter Network to share language interpreters via video conference or phone, thereby expanding the number of language services that each hospital offers. 

 

“In the past my children had to act as my interpreter during other medical visits because I do not understand English. It could get frustrating at times because they would not know how to explain a procedure or say the word correctly,” said Mrs. Teresa Hernandez, 39, a spinal injury patient at Rancho Los Amigos. “Now I have an interpreter who can see me and explain to me so that I understand. It helps to know that my feelings are also being expressed the right way.”

 

 By the end of 2008, Rancho Los Amigos will be adding two additional Spanish-language VMI interpreters and VMI machines in all in-patient areas with the L.A. Care grant.

 

 

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L.A. Care Health Plan is the nation’s largest public health plan, created to ensure access to quality health care for low-income families who live in Los Angeles County.  L.A. Care serves Los Angeles County residents through a variety of programs, including Medi-Cal, Healthy Families, L.A. Care’s Healthy Kids, and L.A. Care’s Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plan.  With nearly 800,000 members, L.A. Care has been awarded an Excellent Accreditation by the National Committee for Quality Assurance.