This is an interesting article. In the US, we have language interpreter services uniformly available in the hospitals and clinics and outpatients for the convenience of patients.
Spanish is the most common language interpretation asked for, constituting nearly 75% of the requested languages assistance.
Then American Sign Language, ASL, is also one of the most frequent services sought for.
Other languages requested for are Vietnamese, Russian, Korean. Hindi is not that common a language asked for because most Hindi speakers are bilingual.
Typically, when a patient who does not speak English and requires a language assistance service, there are multiple ways to approach this issue. We have tablets or computer on wheel (COWs) provided for this reason. So we can just switch on this service and through video remote interpretation, VRI, the language interpreter helps translate patients’ communication to the doctors or the healthcare team and vice versa.
Another way is ‘over the phone’ interpretation (OPI).
And of course, on-site or in-person interpreters are also there in the hospital. So we typically ask for them, and they come and they stand with us in front of the patient, and language interpreter service is provided.
There are several companies which undertake these kind of language interpretation services. They are called language interpretation providers.
@MBT might take this issue for an article.