Dear CCHI Community and Friends,

Writing this Winter Holiday and end of year greeting to you all is a bittersweet experience for me. Sweet, because I get to share with you all the amazing accomplishments of CCHI over the past year and the projects coming in 2023. Bitter, not only for the concerning state of our planet and the war in Ukraine, but also because this will be my last holiday greeting as CCHI Chair. The Commission and Executive Committee of CCHI is based on the spirit of rotation, we serve you for a maximum of two 3-year terms, and next October my terms as the Chair and Commissioner end. This is a very important policy that keeps CCHI fresh and vibrant as new people and new ideas are constantly enriching the board. We are like an ocean liner changing crew members on a regular basis, and yet, with our amazing captain Natalya Mytareva keeping us on course towards the port of professionalization of healthcare interpreting.

It’s the holiday season, so let’s start with the sweet part…

In 2022, CCHI achieved reaccreditation for the CHI-Spanish certification from the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA). So once again, CCHI is the only: National, Accredited, Vendor Neutral and 100% Inclusive (read on…) certification option for healthcare interpreters. National accreditation is part of our marrow, and I want to assure all of you who have worked so hard to achieve the CCHI stamp of approval that we will never do anything to undermine or undervalue our NCCA accreditation. That is your CCHI guarantee!!!

This year we also completed one of the main obligations to maintain our NCCA accreditation: the national Job Task Analysis (JTA). The JTA is our opportunity to learn from you the current pulse of our profession and guide future certification exam efforts to best match the requirements of the entry-level professional healthcare interpreter. Without a JTA, we would be testing and certifying interpreters blindfolded, with no guidance from you – the professionals working day in and day out in our hospitals and clinics.

The CCHI ocean liner picked up its 5,000th passenger in 2022, and at the moment of writing this greeting, every one of us has 5,000+ colleagues who have earned their CCHI professional credentials. Every year we are picking up more and more passengers, but no worries, we have plenty of room on this ship.

In 2022, we all have seen continued prioritization of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives nation-wide, many of them focusing on healthcare interpreting and equity of care for patients with limited English proficiency. Likewise, CCHI is laser-focused on our professional colleagues who do not yet have a skills-based certification. Our project to determine if interpreting skills can be assessed with an English-to-English (ETOE™) exam began under our previous Chair, Margarita Bekker, and continued under the guidance of Chair Idolly Oliva, my predecessor. I have the enormous honor to see the positive results of that research and the launch of our new CoreCHI-Performance™ certification. The first of its kind: a knowledge and skill-based certification for healthcare interpreters of ALL LANGUAGES.

I am so proud and humbled by the gargantuan efforts of CCHI and all the interpreters who agreed to take both the oral Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin skills exams along with the ETOE™ exam. Without their participation, our psychometricians would not have been able to verify the interpreting skills that can be assessed on an English exam. I can think of no greater contribution to the health equity of all patients, regardless of the language they speak, than to know that their interpreter is backed by the credentials of CCHI certification.

We did not and cannot do this alone. To be successful with this endeavor we will need the help of healthcare systems, medical centers, and hospitals – big and small – to require and support certification for their staff interpreters of all languages. We will need Language Service Providers to advertise and prioritize their certified interpreters. And most of all, we will need YOU to sign up for the new certification test and spread the word. To this end, we will be hosting a virtual New Credential Launch Summit in February 2023 to officially kick off the new CoreCHI-Performance certification. Please don’t miss it!!

Creating a new knowledge- and skills-based certification is very time consuming and expensive, but so very important to all of CCHI’s stakeholders. CCHI takes our fiscal responsibilities very seriously and manages the budget for long-term stability. If you are in a situation where you can donate this holiday season, please consider supporting CCHI in our efforts of equity and inclusion for all languages (donate at https://cchi.formstack.com/forms/2022_cchi_giving).

Another way to support CCHI directly is with your certification renewal. Certification is not just passing tests; it is an ongoing and active process of professional advancement. So, to all of you who renewed your certification in 2022… THANK YOU!! To those who will renew in 2023, remember this is another way you directly support CCHI and your profession.

Finally, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for everything you do to promote health equity for all patients and for your ongoing support of CCHI. I hope I have served CCHI over these past years as well as CCHI has served all of us as certified healthcare interpreters.

May you have the happiest 2022 Winter Holiday, and may 2023 bring healing to our climate and our politics, and a consciousness shift from investing in warfare to investing in human well-being.

Sincerely,

Mateo C. Rutherford-Rojas
CCHI Chair

P.S. Stay connected: on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and our website!

December 15, 2022

Washington, DC
Charlotte, NC

Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI)
Atrium Health

We are delighted to announce five recipients of the 2022 Fall cycle of the “Discover Healthcare Interpreting” CoreCHI™ Scholarship. This scholarship supports certification of interpreters of languages for which only the CoreCHI™ certification is currently available. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Atrium Health and Danilo Formolo, personally, for the contribution to our 2022 Fall scholarship.

Atrium Health is a nationally recognized leader in shaping health outcomes through innovative research, education and compassionate patient care. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Atrium Health is an integrated, nonprofit health system with more than 70,000 teammates serving patients at 40 hospitals and more than 1,400 care locations. Ranked nationally among U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals in eight pediatric specialties and for rehabilitation, Atrium Health has also received the American Hospital Association’s Quest for Quality Prize and its 2021 Carolyn Boone Lewis Equity of Care Award, as well as the 2020 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Health Equity Award for its efforts to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in care. Atrium Health believes that good communication is essential to high-quality, compassionate healthcare. All care locations of Atrium Health can provide interpreting services in-person or over the phone, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. While the in-house interpreters speak mostly Spanish, remote interpretation services are offered in more than 200 languages, including American Sign Language (ASL) for the deaf and hard-of-hearing patients.

The Fall 2022 recipients of the “Discover Healthcare Interpreting” CoreCHI™ Scholarship, sponsored by Atrium Health, are:

1. Mafikiri Fata-Marc (Swahili, French, TN)
2. Agnieszka Markowska (Polish, IL)
3. Sanjoy Dutt (Bengali, Hindi, Nepali, OR)
4. Siriporn Bhanont (Thai, Lao, IL)
5. Roody Aupont (Hatian-Creole, MA)

CCHI and Atrium Health commend the achievements and the commitment to professional success of the scholarship winners. We wish them the best of luck on their testing and certification journey.

CCHI Commissioners and staff
Atrium Health

July 15, 2022

Washington, DC
Columbia, MD

Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI)
Cross-Cultural Communications (CCC)

We are delighted to announce five recipients of the 2022 Spring cycle of the “Discover Healthcare Interpreting” CoreCHI™ Scholarship. This scholarship supports certification of interpreters of languages for which only the CoreCHI™ certification is currently available. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Cross-Cultural Communications (CCC) and Marjory Bancroft, personally, for the contribution to our 2022 Spring scholarship.

Cross-Cultural Communications (CCC) is the only national on-site and online training organization for medical and community interpreting, with more than 380 licensed trainers in 43 U.S. states, Washington, DC, Guam, and six other countries. CCC provides training, consulting, and curriculum development, including training of trainer (TOT) programs. Our courses train bilingual staff as well as freelance interpreters. Our core program, The Community Interpreter®, is a 40-hr certificate foundation program for medical, educational, and/or social services interpreters. Under our imprint, Culture & Language Press, we publish interpreting textbooks, workbooks and trainer’s guides sold in more than 30 countries and all 50 U.S. states. Our online training platform, Blue Horizon, provides self-paced and live online programs in medical, community and legal interpreting.

The Spring 2022 recipients of the “Discover Healthcare Interpreting” CoreCHI™ Scholarship, sponsored by Cross-Cultural Communications (CCC), are:

1. Eunjung Han (Korean, CO)
2. Geraldine (Geri) Hernandez (Navajo, AZ)
3. Zakia Siddiqi (Pashto, Dari, WA)
4. Chau Minh Trang Tran (Vietnamese, MD)
5. Mohammad Haroon Walizada (Dari, Pashto, WA)

CCHI and Cross-Cultural Communications (CCC) commend the achievements and the commitment to professional success of the scholarship winners. We wish them the best of luck on their testing and certification journey.

CCHI Commissioners and staff
Cross-Cultural Communications (CCC)

Dear CCHI Community and Friends,

We have endured, survived, and thrived one more year of significant challenges due to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic. Like a spotlight, this pandemic has highlighted the social/economic inequities of our modern societies. Health inequities are nothing new to Healthcare Interpreters and the work we do, day-in and day-out, to reduce them has never been more obvious or appreciated. Around the nation diversity, equity and inclusion measures are being implemented and LEP patient services are at the forefront of these efforts. We would never wish this virus on the world, and yet it has taught us such a valuable lesson: we are one human family, and our collective wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of each individual.

The changes we hope for may seem overwhelming, but each individual one of us have made, and continue to make significant contributions. We have been vaccinated, revaccinated, boosted, masked, physically distanced, and completed assignments we never thought possible via video or telephone interpreting. Recognizing the financial hardships this pandemic has caused for so many, CCHI has done everything possible to support our community through renewal discounts to remote exam proctoring. We thank and appreciate all of you – all of us – for the multiple contributions and sacrifices made during these past two years.

As we reflect on these difficult times, the CCHI Commissioners would like to celebrate and thank all who renewed their certification and the many newly certified interpreters who have made the effort to obtain the stamp of quality and professionalism that CCHI offers. This is a major accomplishment at any time, and even more so during a pandemic. We are nearly 5,000 CHI interpreters strong and growing every year.

As we say goodbye to 2021, I would like to express CCHI´s appreciation to all who support our programs to promote our profession. Our scholarship funders helped us increase certification for languages of lesser diffusion; our presenters and volunteers helped CCHI offer amazing webinars, “Community Conversations” and panel discussions throughout the year; our writers, editors and participants of the “Gender Neutral Language in Health Care” survey; and the supervisors, managers and directors of language services who share their best practices for the benefit of all LEP patients in our “National Language Access Leadership Huddles.” Of course, CCHI could never complete its mission without the hard work and dedication of our amazing raters, dedicated staff, beloved Commissioners, and our incredible Executive Director who continues to help us navigate both smooth and rough waters. Of course, there would be no certification without all the talented CHI and CoreCHI interpreters who volunteered to write, review, and edit our new test items. Thank YOU all for helping CCHI survive and thrive during 2021.

2022 will continue to be an exciting and challenging year. We look forward to many test-development and community engagement projects that have been long planned for. On behalf of CCHI Commissioners and staff, I want to reassure you that we will be here for you throughout 2022 and for as long as it takes to ensure all healthcare interpreters have the certification and professional respect they deserve.

If you are in the position to donate to CCHI, we welcome your holiday gift and promise to put it to very good use Donate link. There will also be many opportunities to volunteer with us in the coming year.

From our family to yours, we wish you a warm and happy holiday season.

Mateo C. Rutherford-Rojas
CCHI Chair

P.S. Stay connected: at Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn,and Instagram, and website!

CCHI is excited to team up with InterpreterEd.com on a research project to understand the effectiveness of interpreter training approaches. The results of this study will be made publicly available to all. The goal of this study is to collect various demographic factors, training and preparation strategies for certification, and identify correlations that may indicate the most effective use of resources.

We are asking interpreters of all languages who work in healthcare settings (yes, ASL interpreters, too!) as well as interpreter managers, trainers, etc. to complete this national survey.

Your participation is of critical importance for the success of this effort. Please don’t wait! Complete the survey now. The survey takes between 15-35 minutes to complete, depending on your role in the healthcare interpreting field. The survey will close on April 30, 2021.

CCHI certificants can earn 0.5 CE hours (non-instructional) for completing the survey. (To receive this CE certificate, they must provide their email at the end of the survey.)

All respondents are eligible to win one of five $50 Amazon gift cards sponsored by InterpreterEd.com.

To complete the survey, cut and paste this link: https://interpretered.com/research-study/.

Dear CCHI certificants, candidates, raters, SMEs, and all supporters worldwide,

After one (insert word of choice) of a year, I know many of you are probably getting ready for a couple of weeks of well-deserved time off, and I want to share this year-end note. This year we all have shed tears with one another, we’ve gotten mad at the world, we’ve been on calls with dogs barking, we’ve Zoomed worldwide, and we have celebrated all the little victories along the way because, after all, we are resilient warriors and champions in the language access world.

As we reflect on the year 2020, CCHI Commissioners would like to first celebrate all certified interpreters, who renewed and maintained their certification, and welcome many new ones, who, despite the pandemic’s challenges, pushed forward and earned their credential with pride. We would like to express our gratitude to our supporters who made our spring and fall scholarships possible this year. A special thank you goes to all the speakers and volunteers who have helped CCHI share amazing webinars and important panel discussions this year. To our fantastic raters, hardworking staff members, and beloved Commissioners who have personally been impacted by the pandemic yet kept rising to the job of supporting CCHI’s mission. YOU all have helped CCHI make the best of 2020. For me, as CCHI Chair, it is tremendously gratifying to see this support from our diverse community.

2021 will be an exciting year for CCHI. We look forward to many test development and community engagement projects that have been long planned for. On behalf of CCHI Commissioners and staff, I want to reassure you that we will be here in 2021, with bells on, ready to help however we can, and certifying interpreters for years to come.

If you are taking some time off, ENJOY! If you are working, THANK YOU! for holding the fort so that patients across the country have access to healthcare services and providers can smoothly do their job.

To end this year with some tunes to sing along and, perhaps, dance to, I encourage you to check out our awesome CCHI 2020 Holiday YouTube playlist. As you click play and enjoy this festive selection, I invite you to please consider donating to us and helping us continue to support our profession! To contribute, click this Donate link. If you have already contributed, accept my sincere appreciation for your kind gift!

Virtual warm hugs to all.
In gratitude, on behalf of all of us at CCHI,

Idolly F. Oliva
CCHI Chair

PS. Stay connected: at Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and website!