CTS LanguageLink Is Here To Stay

Change is constant; you see it in acquisitions and mergers. Here at CTS LanguageLink we think there is one dynamic that does not change, and that is the importance and value of customer service. A company’s customer service is not always improved by head count, or added services. Your company’s customer service improves, we think, through customer adaptation, feedback and innovation.

Make no mistake, we completed a couple acquisitions ourselves and we are expanding our ability (240+ languages available) to speak your customer’s language. Since 1991 we have provided global communication to you. That rounds out to 22 years of multilingual communication services for our new and current clients. We have clients now that have been with us since the beginning. Not many businesses can say they have fostered a 22 year relationship with their clients.

For all your needs in interpretation and translation, we have an extensive focus on customer service and support. For example, do you know who your Language account representative is?Do you speak directly to an account rep. or do you only speak with the gatekeeper?

Our clients speak directly to their own Account Representatives who are supported by our propriety account software and our elite team of interpreters and translators. All clients of ours, past and present, can call and request interpretation and/or translation service, on the spot.  

For your company to adapt and innovate we think it needs client feedback. We provide clients a medium to submit feedback through, our portal system.Once the feedback is received, we partner with clients in finding and implementing solutions. Ask yourself, “do my business partners’ utilize a customer feedback loop to ensure communications, services and deliverables that are of the finest degree, like CTS LanguageLink?”

It is okay, you can say it, we are a quality brand not a cost brand. When you hand us your company’s e-learning projects, your county’s emergency 911 calls or your hospital’s healthcare documents they become an instant priority for us as well.

You should know CTS LanguageLink is: customer focused, opportunity driven and here to stay.

In the Translation Battle, Why We Chose Across over Trados

Across Comes Out Ahead In Translation Memory

We have made the choice to favor and focus on Across as our CAT tool. That can be something of a controversy in the world of translation. It's a little like announcing your favorite sports team to a room of enthusiasts; someone isn't going to be happy with you. But the fact is, Across is the rising star of the translation industry. Trados has long reigned as King of the CAT tools; and in that time, Trados has forgotten how to stay fresh, how to innovate, and how to care for their customers.

In recent years, as technology changes programs are created or updated, it has been an uphill struggle to make Trados work the way we need it to. We have even gone so far as creating in house tools with the singular purpose of taking a file and converting it into something Trados can handle. Now, there is nothing wrong with working hard. But there's working hard, and then there's working smart. Across is the smart option.

As a translation production department, a huge draw for us with Across is the stellar customer service we received. We can't sing Across' praises enough on this subject. Every email, every call has been responded to promptly and acutely. In contrast, when it came time to demo Trados 2011, Trados customer service never replied to any of our questions. Several weeks after our trial had ended, the Trados sales rep finally called to "check in and see how the trial was going."

A second major selling point for the switch to Across, is that the freelance copy of Across (Across Personal Edition or PE), is 100% free to our translators! Yes, you read that correctly. F-R-E-E! This makes it painless to ask our long-standing team of excellent translators to grab Across PE. In addition to Across PE being free, they have an awesome portal tool called crossWeb. This tool makes it possible for any translator on the planet to come and work with CTS, even if they don't have PE. All the translator needs is a stable internet connection. Then they log in and translate the file. That's it. No files getting lost or corrupted in emails. No downloading or uploading. No computer crashing and losing all that hard work. Just nice clean and simple translation done right through our secure network.

For our translators, Across' basic translation features are similar enough that anyone who has used any CAT tool can translate in Across with ease. But the bonuses are what really makes Across stand out:

• With the click of a button, the fully formatted source or target document can be viewed. The target preview updates as translation progresses.
• There are several quality management tools built right into crossDesk that can be quickly reviewed and addressed without needing to open additional windows or to dive into submenus.
• Any repetitions need only be translated once and saved, then Across auto propagates the matching repetitions. This saves time as now the translator only needs to review that repetition within context to confirm its accuracy.
• The memory is live! The client's memory is updated in real time, rather than after the project is completed. This maintains constancy of translations between projects.

In addition to all of the above, Across is constantly growing and updating. This makes it possible for us to localize more file types than ever before. HTML, XML, and PO are just a few of the file types Trados struggled with. With Across it's as easy as it should be.

The ever-growing and evolving environment of Across will continue to open more and more doors for us. We don't have to wait months or years between upgrades to be able to localize the latest software. And that translates into beautiful communication the world over.

CTS LanguageLink and Cynthia Roat on Healthcare Interpretation

Part five of our five part interview series with Cynthia Roat.

Part V

Moderator – Over-the-Phone interpreting and video remote interpreting have become alternatives to conventional on-site interpreting. In light of the balance of patient care and tightening budgets, what are your thoughts on the subject?

Cynthia Roat – And that is the $94 million question. I remember back in the early 2000’s, I approached a couple of major funders in this field about researching the impact that interpreter modality had on the quality of interpreting. I felt we needed to see what the impact was of using over the phone interpreting and on-site interpreting in terms of the level of understanding of the patient, so that we could provide concrete guidance as to when each should be used. But I couldn’t get any funders interested. Even today, there is very little research on this question. But let me tell you of the research that I know.

There are a number of surveys that look at satisfaction. Which do patients and providers prefer: telephonic, on-site, or video remote interpreting? And different studies have gotten totally different answers. This tells you something about the difficulty of satisfaction research, because it depends entirely on what people are comparing the “experimental” service to.

The really interesting research, though, looks at the quality of the interpreting and the quality of the resulting patient understanding. And this is the critical issue. Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Denver looked at interpreted encounters in their [emergency department] and asked what parents understood at the end of their child’s ED visit, compared to what the doctor wrote in the chart. In their research they used the same interpreters, whether by over the phone or on-site, so that the skill of the interpreter was not an issue. The key variable was the modality. What they found was that there little difference between the two modalities in terms of how well people understood.

Now this is only one study and it was done in an emergency department. It would be lovely to see more studies like this, because these results surprised a lot of us. I would have expected to see a lower understanding with the over the phone interpreter, but the researchers didn’t find that, at least not in this study.

Some hospitals like San Francisco General have basically left this question to the medical providers. I think it’s a very interesting approach. Basically, they reason that the providers know what they’re going to talk about with the patient, and that the providers know their patients. So the provider is the one who ought to choose the modality. And if you have providers who have thought a lot about the issues of communication, I think that makes a lot of sense.

Moderator – This has been very interesting. Do you have any further comments that you would like to make?

Cynthia Roat – From one who has seen this field grow from a very ad hoc service to something more systematized, I’m grateful to everybody who has put their heart and soul into assuring that patients and providers from different corners of the world can understand each other.

For more information, visit her Web site at http://www.cindyroat.com

CTS LanguageLink and Cynthia Roat on Healthcare Interpretation

The fourth part of our five part interview series with Cynthia Roat.

Part lV

Moderator - You touched on it briefly when we were talking earlier, but how has technology impacted the world of interpretation from your perspective?

Cynthia Roat - Oh, technology is playing an ever growing role in this field, just as it does in other aspects of our lives. The challenge to all of us, I think, is to leverage technology in appropriate ways to make the provision of language services more effective and more efficient.

We’ve all seen how over the phone interpreting has increased access to language services,
especially for people who speak languages of lesser diffusion. Now if you have a patient who speaks Ga, you can probably get an interpreter over the phone even if you can’t find one in person; before if you didn’t have someone in person, you were stuck. Since video remote interpreting technology is here, a lot more places are implementing this technology. That brings the best of both worlds, where you can gain the efficiency of a remote interpreter, but still allow the interpreter to see what is going on in the exam room, to be able to read body language and to be more present. This is helpful both for the provider and for the patient. So in terms of how you get the interpreter into the room, technology has made a huge difference.

Another use of technology that’s very interesting to me is the use of smart phones by agencies with their contracted interpreters. Now that everybody has smart phones, interpreters can use them to follow their schedules on-line so that they don’t have to constantly be calling or e-mailing or checking in. They can even check their e-mail on their phones. It’s made communication with interpreters who are out and about much easier. I remember when I started, we all carried pagers, and we thought we were on the cutting edge of technology! Now pagers are for dinosaurs. In some cases, interpreters are using tablet computers on which verifying the interpreter’s presence can be done through an electronic signature, and the invoice for that job can be sent in the very moment that the interpreter finishes the job.
This speeds up payment, and makes it possible for interpreters to actually earn a good living in this field.

For more information, visit her Web site at http://www.cindyroat.com

CTS LanguageLink Interviews Cynthia Roat on Interpretation in Healthcare

The third part of our five part interview series with Cynthia Roat.

Part lll

Moderator –It is a very different nomenclature that is spoken, say within the operating room versus what is spoken on the street. It’s a very different set of vocabularies, do you agree?

Cynthia Roat – Yes, in healthcare interpretation, there’s a strong understanding of the differences that culture can make in terms of how we hear and understand what the doctor is saying, and how we choose to respond to what the doctor is saying. Interpreters who work in healthcare have to understand and shine a light on the cultural differences that can impact understanding.

For example, when a traditional Southeast Asian patient says, “You know, I didn’t take those antibiotics. They’re too hot,” just interpreting that “they’re too hot” in English is not actually helping to support the clear communication. The doctor is going to hear “hot” and think temperature and think that this patient is nuts. But the patient may very well mean something altogether different when he says “hot.” He may be referring to a model of illness that sees health as a balance between “hot” and “cold” in the body. In this way of seeing things, illness comes from being out of balance. If one is sick with a “hot” illness, then taking a medication that is also “hot” will just make the imbalance worse. So, this patient says he didn’t take the antibiotic because it was too intrinsically “hot.” If the doctor asks the patient what he means by “hot,” then interpreter can just interpret, and everything is good. But let’s say the doctor doesn’t ask, and just goes on. The interpreter is the only one who realizes that the patient and provider are not understanding each other; they are talking about two totally different things. It’s very important for the interpreter to know how to recognize that and to intervene, to bring to the doctor’s attention to the possibility that there may be a misunderstanding going on. This allows the doctor to recheck with the patient to make sure that the misunderstanding can get worked out.

I think that there’s more of an opening in healthcare interpreting to do this than in other areas of
interpreting, because providers are understanding more and more about how important culture and communication are in their work. This sort of cultural misunderstanding leads patients to not follow treatment protocols or to prepare inappropriately for procedures, or to just not return to finish the treatments that the doctor has prescribed.

For more information, visit her Web site at http://www.cindyroat.com

CTS LanguageLink Interviews Cynthia Roat on Interpretation in Healthcare

The second part of our five part interview series with Cynthia Roat.

Part ll

Moderator – What are some of the difference you see in interpreting in Healthcare versus other fields?

Cynthia Roat  - A major difference between healthcare and many other settings in which interpreters work is that healthcare interpreters really are on the front lines of many fundamental human experiences. Medical interpreters face some of the most intense life experiences that human beings have: birth, death, bad news, really hard decisions. And there’s no protection, if you will, for the healthcare interpreter in those very intense interpersonal communications and those interpersonal relationships. In a court room, there is a formalized protocol that protects the interpreter, and there are strict rules about the kind of interactions that the interpreter can have with the people for whom he or she is interpreting. When you go to conference interpreting, you have the anonymity of the booth. You really don’t have much contact at all with the people for whom you are interpreting.

But I think that the intensely personal conversations that healthcare interpreters interpret require a special ability to set personal boundaries, and yet to be kind and supportive. This is extremely difficult to do, in small ethnic communities in particular. The pressures of working in very small, personal triads are many. And the content of what medical interpreters interpret is often difficult as well. Sometimes it can be difficult technically, while other times it can be difficult emotionally. These are some of the unique challenges found in healthcare interpreting.

I think that most people go into healthcare because they want to help people at some level. If you really don’t care about people, healthcare is not the place for you. So it is very difficult sometimes for healthcare interpreters to know how far they can go to help, and when they

For more information, visit her Web site at http://www.cindyroat.com

CTS LanguageLink Interviews Cynthia Roat on Interpretation in Healthcare

This week we are kicking off part one of our five part interview series with Cynthia Roat.

Writing for Marketing Communication: Best Practices [Infographic]

When writing for Marketing Communication, especially in our shrinking world, businesses need to ensure their message is clear. Ensuring your copy is translation ready for global communication or simple localization is not easy. Using our best practices & tips will help you prep your content for most translation or multilingual desktop publishing projects. In the following infographic we examine good & bad techniques of writing Marketing Communication for your global audience.

On-site. Over-the-phone. Video. What's the right interpretation mode for you?

Historically, foreign language interpretation involved bringing a person who spoke the languages of the patient and health care provider into the clinical setting.  With the advancement of technology the interpretation options are not solely limited to on-site interpretation.  Now interpretation over the phone and via secure Internet video provide further options (and advantages) beyond traditional on-site interpretation.

So how does one decide which mode of interpretation is the best for their situation?  The answer will most likely involve a number of factors.

Interpreter availability – Depending on the prevalence of the limited English proficient (LEP) patient’s language, it may or may not be easy to locate a qualified interpreter.  In most cases, it’s easy to locate someone who speaks Spanish, but do they have the medical bilingual vocabulary to provide accurate interpretation?  Sometimes family members are asked by the LEP patient to interpret, but rarely does the family member know the bilingual terms for medical conditions and procedures. For less prevalent dialects spoken in remote African regions or on secluded South Pacific islands, the nearest interpreter may be thousands of miles away.  In this case, scheduling an on-site interpreter isn’t necessarily realistic for less common languages and an alternative interpretation option must be selected.

Urgency –If a Spanish interpreter is needed in an emergency, our video remote interpretation is available 24/7.  Other less-common languages are best served through over-the-phone interpretation when there is a high degree of urgency.

If an interpretation session is scheduled and visual communication is desired, video remote or on-site interpretation may be the optimal choice.

Cost – From a purely economic perspective, short-term interpretation is best served by over-the-phone interpretation.  However, the “per hour” crossover point is around 50 minutes (depending on the language) compared to on-site interpretation.  In many cases on-site interpreters charge a one or two hour minimum plus they may charge for mileage as well as travel time.

In comparing video remote interpretation to on-site interpretation, the crossover point ranges from 20 to 40 minutes, again relative to the language prevalence and on-site hourly minimum charges.

In general, if an interpretation session will be two hours or longer, an on-site interpreter makes the most economic sense.

Visual requirements – In some cases, visual and non-verbal communication is essential to the interpretation session.  If a patient communicates through sign language, the only real interpretation options are on-site or video remote interpretation. 

Cultural issues – Different cultures have different stigmas associated with controversial medical issues.  Some cultures may categorically disdain people who are dealing with mental health issues, sexually-transmitted diseases or culturally non-accepted therapies.   If the LEP patient is part of a small cultural community based on language, the patient may prefer to have a remote interpreter who is less likely to interact with their local cultural group.  Over-the-phone interpretation provides the highest level of anonymity if patient identification issues are a factor.  The issue of anonymity may be especially important if the patient is a foreign dignitary.  (It should be noted that all interpreters are required to adhere to the highest privacy standards under HIPAA and HITECH laws.)

Procedures or therapies – Some medical procedures require different levels of privacy.  For example, OB/GYN and other urogenital examinations would not be appropriate for video remote interpretation.  In these cases, on-site or over-the-phone interpretation provided by like-gendered interpreters would be strongly advised.

 

The following table provides a suggested mode of interpretation for various medical situations.

Medical situation	Interpretation mode	Note
Emergency Room	VRI	Non-verbal communication included and readily available interpreters
Patient admitting	Telephonic	Short-notice on patient arrival
Inpatient hospital room	Telephonic	Variable needs and on-demand availability for when the doctor makes rounds
Scheduling patient appointments	Telephonic	Most scheduling takes place over the phone
Surgery	On-Site	Offers the highest level of versatility for communication with the patient and family
Laboratory and Radiology	On-site	Offers interpretation versatility for MRI conditions or situations where a speaker system is used
Cancer on-going treatments	VRI	Visual connection with the interpreter provides a closer connection with the patient during this time
End of Life appointments	On-Site	Requires the delicate, human touch that on-site interpretation can provide
Physician office visit	On-Site	Provides the highest level of versatility
OB/GYN	On-Site	Provides the highest sense of personal privacy
Regular dental check-Up	VRI	Cost-effective yet allows for non-verbal communication
Teeth cleaning	Telephonic	Lowest cost for routine procedures
Mental health	On-Site	Provides the highest sense of personal privacy
Pharmacy	Telephonic	Wide variety of languages available on short notice

 

Call us to learn more about our interpretation option.

Selecting the Right Type of Interpretation for Your Situation

Not long ago, the only way to communicate with someone who spoke a language other than English was to contract with an interpreter to come to your location.  The interpreter would arrive and play the role of a “conduit,” converting messages into the appropriate language.  The on-site interpretation process worked fine but interpreters found that they needed to charge an hourly minimum to cover their costs, especially when the appointment lasted for only a couple minutes.

The age of technology expanded the delivery of interpretation services.  The telephone conference call made it possible to have the English speaking person, the limited English proficiency person (LEP) and the interpreter in different locations, even different time zones.  Telephonic interpretation also afforded the interpretation of less common languages, since not every community has a Chin-Hahka interpreter to provide on-site services.

Because of the growing capabilities of wireless computer networks connected to tablet computer and “smart phones,” interpretation is now available via video conference.  The combination of the visual and auditory elements of communication offers the on-site interpretation experience without the additional mileage and transportation costs.

Deciding which form of interpretation is best for your situation isn’t always straight forward.  Each mode of interpretation has its own set of strengths and disadvantages.  HealthLink Interpreters, a division of CTS LanguageLink, has provided a table to help you determine which type of interpretation is right for your needs.

From a cost perspective, over-the-phone interpretation will generally cost the least per minute for sessions shorter than one and a half hours.  Over-the-phone interpretation also avails itself to the most languages, as the interpreter can virtually be anywhere in the world, and most languages are available at a moment’s notice.  Obviously, American Sign Language interpretation is not appropriate for over-the-phone interpretation.

On-site interpretation is often preferred for several reasons.  This is the most familiar form of interpretation, and having the interpreter in the same room supports the intimate nature of communication.  Finding an on-site interpreter for less-common languages can be difficult, especially if the interpreter needs to have specialized training in medical or social services terminology.  The costs associated with on-site can be higher since one or two hour minimums are normal contract stipulations.

Video remote interpreting (VRI) is a hybrid of over-the-phone interpretation and on-site interpretation.  The basic visual communication components of on-site interpretation are combined with the convenience and per minute cost structure of telephonic interpretation.  VRI is similar to a video conference, except that a person may select the desired language to be interpreted, the specialization of the interpreter, and the gender of the interpreter.  As one would expect, VRI costs more per minute than telephonic interpretation, but much less than on-site interpretation for appointments lasting, on average, less than 30 minutes.

The good news is that CTS LanguageLink provides all of these services, 24/7.

For more information about our interpretation services, feel free to call us.