Setting the Standard for Quality in Healthcare Interpreting

Vonessa Costa is director of Multicultural Affairs and Patient Services at Cambridge Health Alliance, named “Best in Class for Delivering Culturally and Linguistically Competent Patient Care throughout the Organization” by the Institute for Diversity in Health Management (2010). Vonessa co-leads CHA’s language access initiatives and one of the largest hospital-based interpreter programs in New England, honored with a 2014 Amerinet Healthcare Achievement Award for technological advances that have enhanced institutional capacity to care for a diverse patient population that is 43% limited English proficient.  Prior to her current position, Vonessa was director of the Cross Cultural Communication Institute at CCCS, Inc., where she specialized in interpreter education and provider training in intercultural communication. Vonessa is a CoreCHI™ practitioner credentialed by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters. She is secretary of the Forum on the Coordination of Interpreter Services (FOCIS) and a member of the America’s Essential Hospitals Education Committee. Vonessa is a graduate of the America’s Essential Hospitals Fellows Program, and a 2019 MassAHEC Tony Windsor Award recipient for advocacy in language access and the professionalization of healthcare interpreters.

Jaime Fatás-Cabeza is the director of the undergraduate degree program in healthcare and legal translation and interpretation at the University of Arizona. He is a United States Court Certified Interpreter (USCCI, English/Spanish), a Certified Healthcare Interpreter™-Spanish, and has been a certified translator by the American Translators Association (ATA). Jaime was a staff judicial interpreter with the Trial Court of Massachusetts, president of the Judicial Interpreters of Massachusetts, Operations Supervisor of Interpreting Services at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and official translator and interpreter for Spanish and Mexican consular offices. He is a conference interpreter. Jaime has taught Translation and Interpretation at the School for Professional Studies at Boston University and at Bentley College, MA; Music and Spanish Language and Culture at Tufts University and the University of Massachusetts/ Boston, as well as in Spanish educational institutions. His professional experience includes stints as staff translator and editor for school and college divisions at Houghton Mifflin Publishing Co., Prentice Hall, and Simon and Schuster. He has recently designed a bilingual assessment (English/Spanish) protocol and training course for dual-role healthcare professionals. Jaime is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the National Council for Interpreting and Healthcare (NCIHC) and a member of the Trainers of Trainers Committee of NCIHC.

Danilo Formolo is the Assistant Vice President of Language Access, part of the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Atrium Health. Danilo is entrusted with leading and transforming one of the largest and most robust healthcare language access programs in the country. The nationally recognized program features over 110 interpreters that primarily serve the Charlotte, NC region, where Atrium Health is headquartered. In addition to operational leadership, strategic initiatives include building a large, scalable infrastructure through the use of technology to increase access, optimize efficiencies, and contain costs on a system level. Danilo earned two Bachelor’s Degrees from UNC Charlotte, plus an MBA. Danilo is well known in the industry and has delivered conference presentations around the country on numerous occasions. Danilo is also responsible for organizing the 2nd largest medical interpreter conference in the U.S., drawing 400 interpreters from the Carolinas and beyond. He also co-leads the Carolinas Association of Medical Interpreter Leaders (CAMIL), a consortium of healthcare language access leaders dedicated towards advancing the profession. Danilo has also served on various boards and committees within Atrium Health and the local community, including the Latin American Chamber of Commerce of Charlotte.

Dylanna Grasinger has spent nearly two decades working to advance the rights of refugees and immigrants throughout the Midwest – becoming an expert in the field of refugee resettlement. Prior to becoming the agency Director at the International Institute of Erie in April 2012, Dylanna spent her time in both Pittsburgh, PA and Akron, OH in the non-profit world. Everywhere she has been, she has devoted her time and energy to developing strong client-centered programming and long-term community partners. Passionate about teaching, Dylanna has also spent over five years in the classroom teaching a myriad of courses to English Language Learners both domestically and internationally. Dylanna earned her B.A. in English from Kent State University, where she also received her certification in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). She has her Master of Science in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Creighton University. She has lived and worked in Turkey and Germany. When not at work she loves to ride her bicycle and spend time with her dogs.

I have enjoyed working professionally in the field of healthcare interpreting for 25 years. Most of those years have been in face-to-face (F2F) interpreting of dialogue in both adult and children’s healthcare settings. I have enjoyed and learned a great deal from many roles in this field having worked as a freelance interpreter, full-time OPI interpreter, interpreter coordinator in hospital settings, interpreter trainer, full-time F2F interpreter in a level 1 trauma center, and researcher.  Additionally, I have extensive experience in written translation (e.g., English > Spanish home care instructions), public speaking, and mentoring interpreters. My areas of interest and expertise include identifying and resolving high register and technical speech, use of advanced and value-added strategies for encounter interaction and navigation of the sociolinguistic bumps. I am strongly invested in moving our field forward by sharing strategies that improve communication, the clinical outcome, raise our perceived value. Finally, I am the principal investigator on grant-funded research to validate a tool that measures interpreter mental fatigue in interpreter mediated healthcare encounters.

Valerie Huang joined Nationwide Children’s Hospital as a Language Services program manager in 2011. Originally from Taiwan, Valerie holds a B. A. in International Business and M.A. in Human Resource Development. She later completed a 2-year Alternative Licensure Program for Foreign Language Education, and found her passion in heritage language teaching and interpreter education. During her career, Valerie has been involved in the development of interpreter training curriculum and capacity building projects focused on grassroots leadership and workforce development. In addition, Valerie has extensive experience in developing and presenting programs on cultural competency and cultural sensitivity care; she has worked with healthcare and social service providers to incorporate cultural understanding into their practice. Because of her drive and dedication to serve the community, Valerie received the Community Action Award from the Ohio Commission of Minority Health in 2017. Prior to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, she served as the program director for Asian American Community Services, and was an international staff administrator for Citibank in Taiwan. As a Certified Healthcare Interpreter™ and trainer of healthcare and community interpreters, she speaks widely at conferences across Ohio and the U.S. and is a frequent contributor for community social service projects in central Ohio.

Francisco Martinez, born in Mexico City, raised in San Luis Potosí, joined Children’s Mercy Kansas City as a staff medical interpreter in 2014. His position now is a Medical and Culture Language Coach who works with bilingual residents to ensure that encounters with Spanish speaking families are safe and free of misunderstandings, and to improve residents’ communicative skills, and understanding of Spanish-speaking patients’ cultural beliefs. At the beginning of his career, Francisco worked in the hospitality industry, run a school of English as a foreign language (EFL), and a translation/interpretation firm.  He did technical translations, conference and business interpreting, and video dubbing for companies such as Cummins Engines, Aceros San Luis, Mexinox, Cigarrera la Moderna, and the Secretaria de Comercio Exterior among others. In the ‘90s, Francisco worked for Richmond Publishing, the EFL/ESL branch of Santillana Editores, supervised and trained new EFL instructors, and taught TOEFL preparation courses at Instituto Angloamericano in Leon, Guanajuato, and was the Academic Chair of Instituto De La Salle de Leon, from kindergarden to High School. In 2001-2013, he was a visiting lecturer of Spanish at Northwest Missouri State University, faculty at their Spanish study-abroad program, and was the interim chair of the Foreign Language Program. Francisco is a strong advocate for high quality language access to health care for all as well for the exploration and creation of new roles for the professional, certified healthcare interpreters.

Johanna Parker holds an M.A. in Translation and Interpretation (Spanish <>English) from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) and is a federally and California certified court interpreter and CCHI Certified Healthcare Interpreter™.  She is Lead Interpreter for Education and Training at Stanford Health Care, a freelance conference interpreter, and a contract seminar interpreter for the U.S. Department of State. Johanna trains interpreters around the country and is an adjunct professor at MIIS, where she teaches medical interpreting.  She also educates providers on the importance of interpreter services and language access as a matter of health equity.  She was awarded the California Healthcare Interpreting Association’s Trainer of the Year award in 2015.

Erin Rosales is Director of Interpreter Development for Connecting Cultures, Inc. She has a B.A. in Spanish and Ministry from Viterbo College. She holds a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance® designation from the Association for Talent Development. She is a member of the Standards and Training Committee of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care and is co-lead for the Home for Trainers – Webinars Work Group. She is a member of the American Translators Association. Since 2003 Erin has been dedicated to actively interpreting in the healthcare field, designing training programs for healthcare interpreters, training interpreters, and developing interpreter trainers. She has a particular interest in workplace learning and performance and in integrating ongoing professional development into the professional practice of healthcare interpreters. She is a regular contributor to the Connecting Cultures blog and is a fan of using social media, especially Twitter (@RosalesErin), to learn from professionals across a variety of fields, to discover and share valuable professional development resources, and to enjoy a bit of whimsy on occasion.

Mateo Rutherford has worked for the Interpreting Services Department at UCSF Health since 2012 as a Supervisor, Administrative Director and Project Manager. UCSF has over 200,000 LEP patient visits in over 80 languages per year and offers patients and providers a mixed service model, including telephone, video and on-site interpreting services. UCSF Health now requires all per diem contract interpreters to be nationally certified and complete a full-day of shadowing in an effort to insure and enhance the quality of their language services. Mateo holds a Master’s Degree in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master’s Degree in Spanish Interpretation and Translation from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He has worked as a freelance Spanish interpreter since 1987 throughout Latin America, Europe, Asia and the United States. He specializes in topics related to the life sciences and technology. Previously he worked as a bilingual disease prevention trainer under contract with the CDC throughout the US, Puerto Rico and Honduras and currently conducts trainings for healthcare interpreters through California Healthcare Interpreting Association (CHIA) and other organizations. Mateo is also a founding member of the University of California Medical Interpreting Consortium, including UCSF, UCLA, UC Davis, UC Irvine and UC San Diego Interpreting Services Departments. He serves on the Education Board of CHIA and is a CERTIFIED HEALTHCARE INTERPRETER™.

E. Zoe Schutzman grew up in Seville (Spain) and moved to Connecticut where she completed her BA in East Asian Studies and Architectural Design at Wesleyan University. She received her MA in Linguistics from the CUNY Graduate School and pursued Translation and Interpretation Studies at Hunter College (in New York). Thereafter, she became a NYS Certified Spanish Court Interpreter and a Nationally Certified Healthcare Interpreter (CHI™). She is a licensed trainer for The Community Interpreter International (TCII), Medical Terminology for Interpreters (MT), Interpreting for Pediatric Genetics (IPG), and The Interpreter Trainer Online (ITO). Zoe is Co-founder and CEO at Cloud 18 Productions Inc., an international technology-driven creative enterprise.

A seasoned linguist, Zoe has taught at institutions of higher education and trained individuals to become qualified medical interpreters. She has developed and enhanced curricula, assessment and quality assurance protocols, and she has provided linguistic and culturally appropriate expertise to varied research endeavors. Her contributions (published and otherwise) have encompassed meaningful access to healthcare for limited English proficient and languages of lesser diffusion communities; sociolinguistic, language acquisition, language documentation, and performance projects; analyses of internal and national regulatory policies; and the development, trans-creation, translation of literary, research, outreach, and educational materials.

Since joining the University of New Mexico Hospitals (UNMH) (Albuquerque, NM), Zoe has elevated training and competency assessment standards for staff and dual role medical interpreters alike. She has mentored interpreters (ASL, Arabic, Farsi/Dari, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, Navajo, Romanian, Spanish, Swahili, Vietnamese, etc.) and propelled new avenues for professional development. Furthermore, she has cultivated system-wide regulatory adherence, process improvement, and partnerships with key institutional and community stakeholders. Prior to UNMH, Zoe worked for four fruitful years alongside Javier González at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Immigrant Health & Cancer Disparities Service (IHCD).