Shenandoah Community Health (SCH) is here to bridge the gap in healthcare access. As a Federally Qualified Health Center, we tackle the challenges of cost, transportation, and language barriers to ensure everyone in our community receives the care they need. We offer a comprehensive range of services, including primary care for adults and children, women's health, behavioral health, and oral health. Plus, we provide additional support services such as on-site pharmacy, labs, and radiology. Working at SCH isn't just a job; it's a chance to make a real difference in the lives of your neighbors. Join our team and become part of the solution! Visit our website at Shenandoah Community Health to learn more.
Job Summary:
Shenandoah Valley Medical System is seeking a Medical Interpreter and a Lead Medical Interpreter to provide accurate English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-English interpretation and translation services for Spanish-speaking patients and families receiving care within SCH. These roles support clear communication between patients, families, providers, and staff; assist with patient access and administrative needs.
Medical Interpreter Responsibilities:
- Participate as a neutral party and serve as a communication link between SCH staff and patients.
- Provide English-Spanish interpretation for all services and locations of SCH.
- Ensure information related to patient services, hospitalization, advance directives, consents for treatment, diagnosis and prognosis, treatment plans, follow-up appointments, and health care education is accurately communicated.
- Address patient questions and concerns regarding communicated information in a clear and effective manner.
- Provide interpreter services by conveying the exact message rather than summarizing information subjectively.
- Follow all policies and procedures related to processes, services, and employee work rules.
- Maintain confidentiality regarding patient care and visitor matters involving non-English-speaking patients, families, and escorts.
- Answer phone calls from the Spanish line and relay messages to providers, nurses, referrals, and medical records.
- Schedule, confirm, cancel, or reschedule appointments as requested by patients and SCH staff.
- Update the Electronic Health Record (EHR) as needed.
- Assist patients with completing registration and financial forms and answer questions to ensure understanding.
- Assist patients with Primary Care, Women's Health, Pediatrics, Behavioral Health, Pharmacy, Lactation Consultant, Diabetic Education, and related questions, concerns, clarifications, and refill requests.
Lead Medical Interpreter Additional Responsibilities:
- Provide English-Spanish interpretation for all services and locations of SCH.
- Coordinate and standardize the process for connecting limited English proficiency (LEP) patients with appropriate language support services, including in-person interpretation, tele-interpretation, and other relevant interpretation modalities.
- Demonstrate cultural proficiency through values and behaviors that support effective engagement with people and groups from diverse backgrounds.
- Build and maintain interpreting schedules and arrange in-advance and on-demand interpretation requests.
- Organize and maintain SCH language access resources and workflows and act as the main point of contact for language support services at SCH.
- Provide training and education to staff as needed.
- Act as liaison between language support vendors and SCH.
- Track and monitor LEP patient experience through surveys, data reporting, observation, and other relevant methods, and implement improvements based on findings.
- Participate in local trainings and collaborative meetings that work to improve access to community services for LEP community members.
- Assist with the implementation and adoption of technological solutions for interpretation and translation services for SCH patients.
- Collect staff feedback, explore opportunities to improve language support workflows and resources, and suggest improvements based on findings.
- Route patient needs and requests as appropriate.
- Collaborate with SCH Leadership and Marketing departments to support effective patient communication.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Qualification & Education Requirements
- Bilingual - English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-English
- High School diploma or GED; AA preferred
- Experience working as a professional interpreter preferred
- Experience working in a healthcare setting preferred.
- Experience with communication technologies such as telephone or video remote interpreting
Essential Skills:
- Medical Interpreter Certification or Bridging the Gap highly recommended or actively working toward this.
- Successful completion of conversation/translation competency testing in secondary language, knowledge of Medical Terminology, and language proficiency test.
- Maintain strict patient confidentiality and comply with federal and state privacy laws.
- Consistently adhere to and/or exceed SCH communication guidelines and expectations with internal and external customers including co-workers, patients, and external partners
- Possess good listening and communication skills.
- Office skills including word processing, data entry, and record keeping principles.
- Possess the ability to work in a courteous and professional demeanor with patients, co-workers, and community contacts.
- Demonstrate a friendly, patient, and compassionate demeanor when dealing with people, even in difficult situations.