Mission Statement

The mission of the VUMC Interpreter Services Office is to provide timely, professional interpreter services to all Limited English Proficient (LEP) patient and families.
Photo by Dana Johnson

Purpose

The VUMC Interpreter Services Office exists to:

• Develop a procedure to Identify and meet the language needs of our patients.
• Maintain ready access to qualified interpreters and provide this free service to our patients in a timely manner.
• Disseminate Interpreter Services policies and procedures to staff and ensure staff awareness of these policies and procedures and their compliance under Title VI.

How to request an interpreter

In order to avoid inconveniences and to ensure that the patient has an interpreter present in his or her appointment, please call in advance to inform the Interpretation Services Office of cancelled and/or re-scheduled appointments. For additional information about requesting an interpreter, please click here.

For services for the deaf and hard of hearing, please contact the League for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing at (615) 248-8828.

For spoken language interpreters, please submit your request electronically (preferably 48 hours notice) by clicking on the link below:

Interpretation Services Request Form

For short notice or same day requests, please call the On-Site Interpreter Line at (615) 322-7378. This line is staffed by Interpreter Services personnel Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and is forwarded to the answering service after hours and on weekends to provide 24 hour access to on-site interpreters.

All short notice requests will be met on a first come, first serve basis. Language Line is an option that provides interpreters by phone 24 hours a day. If you would like more information about the Language Line, please contact the Interpreter Services On-Site Line or the Office of Patient Affairs at (615) 322-6154. Language line information must be handled with confidentiality.

Document translation and revision

The Interpreter Services Office will coordinate translation of any forms which must be presented in languages other than English in order to fulfill VUMC’s responsibilities to its patients and to comply with all applicable laws. Such forms and other documents include but are not limited to the following:
--Consent forms;
--Any statement of patient rights and responsibilities;
--Forms recording the patient’s diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and/or discharge plan.
New and revised items falling into these categories will be referred by Forms Management to the Interpreter Services Office for consideration for translation.

Translated text must be approved by the Interpreter Services Office and transmitted by that office directly to Forms Management. It is generally expected that alternate language text will be presented on the same page with English text in order to facilitate use of the form by both patient and caregiver, and Forms Management will design with this in mind.
Translated items will be filed and may be ordered according to the following system:

An alternate language form will share the same MC# as its English-language counterpart. It will be distinguished by a three-letter extension on the end of the number which will indicate the language used in the form. These extensions are:

ARB-Arabic
CRO-Croatian
JPE-Japanese
KOR-Korean
KUR-Kurdish
LAO-Laotian
RUS-Russian
SPA-Spanish
VIE-Vietnamese

(6/2001)

Faculty and Staff: Check Vanderbilt's e-docs to see if your document has already been translated. If you would like to have materials translated, please send them via e-mail in a Microsoft Word document to Darien.Mejia-Olivares@vanderbilt.edu.
For more information regarding Medical Center documents, see forms guidelines.