July 6, 2020

Washington, DC
Atlanta, GA

Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI)
ALTA

We are delighted to announce five recipients of the 2020 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 ALTA and Stephanie Wiley Cork, personally, for the contribution to our 2020 Spring scholarship.

ALTA has more than 30 years of experience providing language and cultural solutions to businesses, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Employee-owned since 2011 and headquartered in Atlanta, ALTA has built strong relationships with language professionals worldwide. ALTA’s Interpreter Training department is dedicated to the development and delivery of fresh, relevant, and engaging curriculum for medical interpreters at every level.  Their highest priority is providing quality training with a superior client experience.

The Spring 2020 recipients of the “Discover Healthcare Interpreting” CoreCHI™ Scholarship, sponsored by ALTA, are:

1. Ganga Ram Adhikari (Nepali, PA)
2. Monica Feijo Desbiens (Portuguese, CA)
3. Naomie Florestal (Haitian Creole, MA)
4. Yulia Rosario (Russian, TX)
5. Shengfei Wen (Cantonese, CA)

CCHI and ALTA 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
ALTA

March 25, 2020
Washington, DC
Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI) is deeply concerned about the safety of healthcare interpreters, language access services for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) and their families, and safety of all healthcare workers during this pandemic.

We understand that many hospitals and healthcare systems in the U.S. are doing their best to re-think the logistics of providing health care and to allocate all resources efficiently and effectively. The current situation is unprecedented in our lifetimes. Safety of all healthcare workers with direct patient contact must be our number one priority. This includes physicians, nurses, allied professionals, and face-to-face/onsite healthcare interpreters whether or not they have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or are potentially COVID-19-positive.

The Commissioners advise healthcare administrators and managers that face-to-face/onsite healthcare interpreters should be provided the same level of protection and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) as any healthcare provider for whom they are interpreting. We recognize that the PPE shortage may necessitate certain limiting measures in some facilities and locations. It is extremely important for managers to have transparent and honest conversations with interpreters and collectively come to an understanding when and to whom PPE is provided.

Ultimately, if appropriate PPE is not available for an interpreter, then alternatives to face-to-face/onsite interpreting MUST be provided to both reduce the spread of the coronavirus by interpreters and ensure their personal safety. Unlike most healthcare providers, interpreters work in different departments, different facilities, and even different campuses throughout the day. Their inadequate protection will result in spreading the virus not only in the community and to their families, but also to other healthcare workers and patients within and outside a specific facility.

CCHI recommends all hospitals, health systems, clinics, and healthcare providers deploy Remote Interpreting (RI) for most of their interactions with LEP patients and their families, as the primary modality for delivery of language access services in the time of this pandemic. We understand that implementation of RI cannot happen overnight and may require certain IT solutions as well as evaluation for compliance with laws and regulations. However, implementing RI will allow facilities to reserve much needed PPE for healthcare professionals who must be in direct contact with patients. Furthermore, face-to-face interpreters have a higher risk of becoming a vector of infection even with the appropriate use of PPE due to the mobility of their job.

In situations when institutions are utilizing telemedicine/telehealth options for providing care, they need to incorporate RI into these solutions to ensure equal access to health care for LEP patients.

Remote Interpreting may be implemented in the following ways:

• Creating in-house RI call centers from where current staff interpreters interpret remotely via video or phone. In such call centers, proper distancing and cleaning protocols must be enforced to ensure safety of interpreters.
• Equipping current staff interpreters with tools to interpret from home via a video application or phone.
• Expanding utilization of, or contracting with, language service companies providing RI as part of their business model.

Regardless of the method chosen, the facility must ensure that LEP patients are placed into rooms that have access to a phone or video device (tablet, computer monitor, TV screen) connected to the internet.

CCHI also encourages all interpreters to closely work with their management to help ensure safety of everyone and continued equal access to health care for LEP patients. Together we will persevere. Thank you for your service!

CCHI Commissioners

Dear CCHI certificants, raters, SMEs and supporters !

Happy New Year!

2019 was a busy and successful year for CCHI. As always, we concentrated on our main mission which is to certify healthcare interpreters in US. With this in mind, we listened to you  and made important chances in our testing and renewal process.  We have a new vendor who we believe will provide smooth testing experience to our candidates. We switched from 2 to 4 year renewal cycle. We have two administrative and customer support staff members who help our candidates and certificates with all of their certifications and renewal needs.

2019 was also a year of celebration. CCHI celebrated our ten-year anniversary at the Summit in Minneapolis. The in person and online turnout was beyond and above of our expectations. As a Chair of CCHI,  I am grateful  to all the sponsors, speakers and volunteers for making this event a success.  Our entire board and staff worked extremely hard  for many months  to put together this event which was not only celebratory but educational as well.  Thank you all who attended and supported us! For me as a CCHI Chair, it is tremendously gratifying to see support form our diverse community.

Many attendees asked me if CCHI will  have another Summit. My answer is “Absolutely! We will have a 20th Summit in 2029!”. CCHI, the only accredited certification organization for healthcare interpreters is here to stay !

2020 will be exciting year for CCHI. As many of you know, we spent 2019 fundraising and organizing our EtoE Research Study.  We are proud that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation believed in us and provide us with a grant. We are also grateful to all who donated to our crowd-funding campaign. We hope that the EtoE Research Study will provide us with definitive answer if language neutral performance testing of healthcare interpreters can became a reality. If you are thinking about volunteering for the EtoE Research Study, the time is now!

As a Chair of CCHI, I wish you joy, health, and professional success in 2020!

Margarita Bekker
CCHI Chair

We thank you for your continued support of CCHI in 2019 – a year filled with reflections about the future, upgrades to our testing systems, and celebration of 10 years of the healthcare interpreter certification in the U.S. We thank you for your trust in and loyalty to CCHI! Without you, we cannot be a success.

In 2020, we look forward to working with you to accelerate the progress toward establishing the healthcare interpreter certification as the national standard. One of the opportunities is to participate in the EtoE Research Study. Watch what our Chair Margarita Bekker has to say about this Study – click here.

We wish everyone a New Year full of excitement, peace, happiness, health, and professional prosperity!

CCHI Commissioners, staff and support team

December 15, 2019

Washington, DC

Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI)
National Council on Health Care Interpreting (NCIHC)

We are

pleased to announce five recipients of the 2019 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 thank CCHI Commissioners and the Board of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care (https://www.ncihc.org), for the contribution to our 2019 Fall scholarship.

The National Council on Interpreting in Health Care is a multidisciplinary organization whose mission is to promote and enhance language access in health care in the United States. The NCIHC started as an informal working group in 1994 and met yearly until it was formally established in 1998. The group is composed of leaders from around the country who work as medical interpreters, interpreter service coordinators and trainers, clinicians, policymakers, advocates and researchers. The NCIHC is a membership organization.

CCHI Commissioners donated their speaking engagements honoraria to the 2019 Fall Scholarship cycle.

The Fall 2019 recipients of the “Discover Healthcare Interpreting” CoreCHI™ Scholarship are:

1. Nayshunda O. Burke (ASL, GA)
2. Laureta Comeau (Albanian, MA)
3. Galina Iancu (Romanian, NC)
4. Hom N. Pokhrel (Nepali, MN)
5. Natalia Wolff (Russian, IL)

CCHI and NCIHCcommend 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
NCIHC

Information about the scholarship is available here.

July 15, 2019

Washington, DC
Grand Rapids, MI

Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI)
Voices For Health®

Today, on our 10th Anniversary of CCHI’s incorporation, we are thrilled to announce five recipients of the 2019 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 Voices For Health® and Carlos Pava and Michelle Scott, personally, for the contribution to our 2019 Spring scholarship.

Voices For Health® stands by its mission to “improve access to healthcare, education and social services through comprehensive language and culture solutions.” Their personalized approach, experience and expertise help customers to meet the language needs of limited-English speaking and Deaf/hard-of-hearing individuals and families.

The Spring 2019 recipients of the “Discover Healthcare Interpreting” CoreCHI™ Scholarship, sponsored by Voices For Health®, are:

1. Chakraborty, Priyanka (Bengali & Hindi, DE)
2. Gilchrist, Troy Gilbert (Vietnamese, NM)
3. Gonzalez Salvador, Brigida (Mixteco, CA)
4. Lima, Rubem Silva (Portuguese, MN)
5. Szpyrka, Aneta Magdalena (Polish, NY)

CCHI and Voices For 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
Voices For Health®

Information about the scholarship is available here.

CCHI’s 10th anniversary that we are celebrating this year is an opportunity for us to reflect on how we can improve. Technology has changed significantly since 2009. What was innovative then, is average now. We want to be as innovative today as we were 10 years ago in order to offer you the best certification experience possible.

The Commissioners have decided to invest in a major upgrade of our testing processes to ensure that we are utilizing the best technology available. We call it our “upgrade trifecta.” This summer, we will upgrade our exam scheduling, testing software, and test center network.

Your feedback over the years helps us make our systems more user-friendly and responsive. Thank you for your suggestions! Of course, such an undertaking requires time to make sure we get things right. Scheduling of the CHI ™ exam will be suspended during the upgrades. Please check our Scheduling page and social media channels for updates.

Thank you in advance for your patience and support!

CCHI Commissioners and staff

January 17, 2019

Washington, DC
Portland, OR

Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI)
Certified Languages International (CLI)

CCHI is pleased to announce receiving a most generous contribution to our EtoE study of interpreting cognitive skills from Certified Languages International, our long-standing supporter and donor.

Certified Languages International is well known in the interpreting world and many of our certificants and volunteers do business with CLI. CLI provides on-demand interpreting and translation services in 230 languages and counting. Additionally, CLI now offers language assessment services to clients wishing to test their in-house resources, a service that can greatly benefit from the results of CCHI’s EtoE Study.

“We are honored and deeply grateful to receive this gift from the language services company known for its leadership and caring about the interpreting profession. CLI has been CCHI’s supporter since our inception, and, as we celebrating our 10th Anniversary this year, we are delighted to have this opportunity to work together again, says CCHI’s Chair Margarita Bekker. – This revolutionary study is only possible if all stakeholders get involved. We hope more companies and training organizations would join our project as well.”

Kristin Quinlan, CEO of CLI, comments, “Certified Languages International is a firm believer in putting quality first in everything. That’s why we encourage our interpreters to get certified and continue their professional involvement. That’s why we support professional development of interpreters in all forms. This new project by CCHI is a great opportunity to test some assumptions and ideas about the nature of interpreting skills. We look forward to the study results that will help us better qualify interpreters of languages of limited diffusion and ensure we provide to our clients the highest quality of interpreting in any language.”

To volunteer for and learn more about the EtoE Study, visit http://cchicertification.org/etoe/.

December 21, 2018

Washington, DC
Woburn, MA

Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI)
Cross Cultural Communication Systems, Inc™ (CCCS, Inc™)

CCHI has just received an amazing gift this holiday season – a most generous contribution to our EtoE study of interpreting cognitive skills from Cross Cultural Communication Systems, Inc™.

Many interpreters know of CCCS, Inc™ through seeing their representatives at various interpreting conferences and by taking their in-depth online and in-person interpreting courses, as well as an oral online Language Assessment for bilingual providers on language proficiency and their knowledge in healthcare and/or mental health terminology. The organization’s mission is to provide qualified cultural-linguistic services to healthcare, educational, legal and business, by creating a seamless environment of teamwork and collaboration between customers, freelancers and staff members, so that together they can continue providing innovative, respectful, and reliable quality interpretation, translation and training services to a diverse population with regional, organizational and individual needs.

“CCHI Commissioners are deeply moved to receive this gift from such an established interpreter training organization who is known for their leadership and support of interpreters’ professional development, says CCHI’s Chair Margarita Bekker. – This revolutionary study is only possible if all stakeholders get involved. We hope other companies and training organizations would join our project as well.”

Zarita Araujo-Lane, LICSW, President of CCCS, Inc, explains, “Our organization and I, personally, have always believed in doing everything at the most professional level. It is time that the interpreting profession engages in serious, statistically valid research. In the age of evidence-based healthcare and big data analysis in all aspects of our lives, we need to step up and start making decisions based on data, too. I commend CCHI for taking the lead and planning the study that will help educators, interpreters, employers understand what cognitive skills make a person an interpreter. It is a brave move since the outcome is unknown. Another aspect of the EtoE project that we wholeheartedly support is its inclusiveness and social-justice approach to certification and testing. We agree that interpreters of all languages should have an opportunity to prove their professional qualifications.”

To contribute to the EtoE Project, join our crowdfunding campaign at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/interpreter-testing-revolution#/.

To learn more about the EtoE Study, visit http://cchicertification.org/etoe/.