Language Initiatives

The Center for Immigrant Health (CIH) has a long history of providing quality training in medical interpreting and cultural competency. The only such program in the New York City area, the CIH currently has programs that address the linguistic and cultural needs of persons with limited English proficiency, and the educational needs of their health care providers and staff. The mission of the Language Initiatives Program is to improve the immigrant and refugee communities' access to, and experience with, the health care system. The CIH has developed a number of innovative programs in collaboration with health care providers and administrators, social scientists, researchers and community members to provide culturally and linguistically sensitive health services. CIH accomplishes its mission through research, education and training, program development, technical assistance, and information dissemination.

As part of its language initiative programs, in 1995 the CIH developed a medical interpreter project entitled, "Access Through Medical Interpreter and Language Services (ATMILS)."The ultimate objective of this project was to create a comprehensive medical interpreter network in New York City. The national model analysis and assessment conducted in New York City led to: 1) the development of a medical interpreter screening and assessment tool, as well as bilingual aptitude instruments; 2) the implementation of a 48-hour interpreter training curriculum and course; 3) the establishment of a medical interpreter "train the trainer" program; 4) the implementation of a pilot project to pioneer and demonstrate the efficiency and efficacy of a Remote-Simultaneous Medical Interpreting System; 5) the development of a curriculum in simultaneous interpreting; 6) the expansion of staff training curricula in the cross-cultural medical interview and working with interpreters; and 7) the development of curricula in medical translation.

The CIH has a state of the art multilingual language lab for the instruction of medical interpreting.