Accepted CE Topics

• The healthcare interpreter profession: New developments, innovations, current issues
• Healthcare Interpreter Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice (controversial issues, ethical dilemmas)
• Patient advocacy
• Healthcare interpreter’s role and role boundaries: recognizing situations when to decline an assignment
• Ethical decision-making (including, appropriate protocols, interpreting modes in complex situations, HIPAA and patient safety issues)
• Communication elements, e.g. public speaking, interviewing techniques, mediation, conflict de-escalation/resolution, communication in sensitive interpersonal situations, assertive communication techniques, active listening skills, etc.
• Critical thinking
• Safety protocols, personal protective gear, and universal precautions in health care
• Laws and regulations pertaining to healthcare interpreting and health care: updates, current issues
• Creating effective professional improvement and development plans for healthcare interpreter
• Interpreter self-care (secondary traumatization, etc.)

 

CCHI defines an Interactive Ethics CE training as meeting both content (ethics) and methodology (interactive) criteria.

Content of Ethics CE

To qualify as an ethics credit, a course or session must focus primarily on at least one of the following:

• Codes of Ethics or Standards of Practice
• Ethical Decision-Making Frameworks (e.g., communicative autonomy)
• Analysis of Real or Simulated Ethical Dilemmas
• Role boundaries and Advocacy (e.g., when to step in, when to step back)
• Confidentiality and Privacy (e.g., HIPAA-related scenarios)
• Conflict of interest, impartiality, and professionalism in interpreting
• Cultural mediation and its limits through an ethical lens
• Comparative Ethics (e.g., compare approaches to interpreter intervention in court and medical interpreting)

What Content Does Not Count Toward Ethics CE Credits?

Courses or workshops that do not focus on ethics for interpreters – even if related to interpreting or health care – would not qualify.

Examples include:

• Medical terminology, anatomy, or disease-specific webinars
• Language proficiency courses or grammar refreshers
• General professional development (e.g., marketing, time management)
• Technology use (unless it’s tied directly to ethical challenges, like confidentiality with remote platforms)
• Cultural topics without a clear tie to ethical decision-making
• Interpreter skill-building without a clear tie to ethical decision-making
• Attending sessions on ethics of other professions (e.g., grand rounds, court or educational interpreting ethics)

Methodology of Interactive Ethics CE

To qualify for ethics CE credits, a course or session must be interactive—regardless of whether it is offered synchronously (live) or asynchronously (on-demand), in-person or virtually. Interactivity ensures that participants not only learn about ethical principles but also engage in practical application and decision-making that reflect real-world interpreting challenges.

An interactive ethics-focused course must include opportunities for participants to:

• Apply ethical frameworks to realistic scenarios or case studies
• Make decisions based on presented dilemmas and justify their reasoning
• Actively reflect on ethical principles and standards of practice (i.e., share their opinions and understanding with the instructor and/or other participants)

• Engage in structured activities, requiring participants to share their perspectives, opinions, and approaches, such as:
  • Whole group discussion, live polls or breakout rooms or small group discussions (for synchronous learning)
  • Discussion forums/boards or written reflections (for asynchronous learning)
  • Scenario-based simulations or roleplays, which are in-person, written or video-based, with prompts for response
  • Multiple-choice or open-ended quizzes that include scenario-based or critical thinking questions and instructor feedback (for asynchronous learning such feedback could consist of rationales for the correct answer and incorrect options)

What Methodology Does Not Count Toward Interactive Ethics CE Credits?

• Courses that consist solely of passive learning such as listening to a lecture, watching a video or reading an article without any opportunity to engage
• Attending an ethics panel without a meaningful audience participation (i.e., questions from the audience to the panelists do not meet CCHI’s criteria of interactivity)
• Presentation of content in a lecture format followed by questions from the audience (i.e., the usual Q&A part of a presentation does not meet CCHI’s criteria of interactivity)

• Healthcare Interpreter Standards of Practice (interventions, transparency, asking for clarifications, pauses, and repetitions)
• Manage unfamiliar terms and concepts
• Ethical decision-making (including, appropriate protocols, interpreting modes in complex situations, HIPAA and patient safety issues)
• Communication elements, e.g. public speaking, interviewing techniques, mediation, conflict deescalation/resolution, communication in sensitive interpersonal situations, assertive communication techniques, active listening skills, etc.
• Critical thinking
• Identifying the most effective interpreting modality for a given healthcare encounter
• Working effectively with an interpreter
• Methods of researching new terminology and finding appropriate equivalents in a target language
• Memory skills development
• Note-taking techniques

• Intermediate healthcare terminology in both working languages
• Advanced healthcare terminology in both working languages
• Any healthcare specialty presentation (presentations by healthcare specialists for healthcare or allied professionals which give interpreters the background information and English terminology, e.g. new surgical procedure)
• Establishing Equivalency
• Terminology Research methods

• U.S. healthcare delivery systems
• U.S.  healthcare culture and principles of Western biomedicine
• Public health and its implications on populations
• Federal and state legislation and regulations pertaining to language and healthcare access
• Applicable legislation and regulations regarding the role of interpreters as mandated reporters
• Latest developments in the U.S. health and healthcare system
• Relevant organizational structure (specialties) and protocols (e.g. Emergency Department protocols)
• Roles and responsibilities of healthcare providers and staff
• Social determinants of health and special populations needs
• Relevance of disparities that prevent access to health care
• Comparison of the U.S. system with another country
• Healthcare insurance plans
• Medical and ethical decision-making
• Medical team education and communication

• Cultural brokering and mediation
• Cross-cultural communication skills
• Health beliefs and practices of specific populations with a non-English native language
• U.S.  healthcare culture and principles of Western biomedicine
• Spirituality (in the context of health and health care)
• Culture-specific communication étiquette (interpersonal, public  vs. private, etc.)
• Cultural barriers to accessing health care
• Various intervention strategies

• Consecutive interpreting skill-building with a specific healthcare specialty focus (e.g. interpreting in Labor and Delivery, during a gastroenterology consult, at a dental appointment, etc.)
• Language-specific skill-building in consecutive interpreting
• Consecutive interpreting skill-building in other settings (administrative hearings, court interpreting, conference interpreting)
• Voice training

• Simultaneous interpreting skill-building with a specific healthcare specialty focus (e.g. interpreting in Emergency Department, during a mental health appointment, etc.)
• Language-specific skill-building in simultaneous interpreting
• Simultaneous interpreting skill-building in other settings (administrative hearings, court interpreting, conference interpreting)
• Voice training

• Sight Translation skill-building with a specific healthcare specialty focus (e.g. patient education documents related to women’s health, etc.)
• Sight Translation skill-building with a specific type of document focus (e.g. medical history forms; quasi-legal documents in health care – releases, waivers; grammatical peculiarities of healthcare documents, etc.)
• Language-specific skill-building in sight translation
• Sight Translation interpreting skill-building in other settings (administrative hearings or court interpreting)
• Written Translation skill-building, limited to healthcare, medical, legal, and healthcare/auto insurance subject areas (only 8 hours are accepted; updated on 04/12/2022)

• Regionalisms
• Idiomatic expressions
• Different register
• Slang
• Language-specific grammar topics
• Accent reduction (PB)