The New York City, Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) has negotiated a contract for $30,853,396 with CyraCom International, Inc, Language Line Services, and Pacific Interpreters Inc. to provide Over-the-Phone-Medical Interpreting (OPI) services to HHC patients with limited English proficiency. The need for OPI services will not diminish in the future. OPI services uses telephones to connect professional interpreters to individuals who need to speak to each other but don’t share a common language. OPI connects remotely via telephone to professionals who are proficient in the languages of both the speaker and receiver and but may have some knowledge or familiarity with both cultures. In the healthcare environment, OPI services help patients talk to their healthcare provider and enables providers to talk to patients and families.
OPI services are used for over 190 different languages and dialects and services range from over 450,000 requests for Spanish to one request for Kanjobal, a Mayan dialect. The services help in HHC acute hospitals, long term care facilities, diagnostic and treatment centers, community health clinics, and certified home health agency.
CyraCom, Language Line, and Pacific Interpreters have been serving HHC since 2002. The present agreement with the three vendors was entered into in 2009 but since the contracts expired in the spring of 2013, an RFP was issued and three vendors were selected.
Deliverables include providing services by qualified medical interpreters, a 24/7 live operator to respond to HHC interpretation requests, a 24/7 live operator to address HHC customer service concerns, and monthly and on-demand reports describing the vendor’s performance and equipment.