We offer the following resources to assist you with your communications needs:
- Professional staff interpreters and dual-role interpreters
- Video Remote Interpretation in several languages including ASL and Spanish
- Agency interpreters; ASL and several foreign languages
- Phone interpretation services in more than 150 languages
- Video Relay Service via Sorenson
- Closed caption TVs
- Amplified phones
We encourage you to bring your family members with you and have them involved in decisions concerning your care. However, Lancaster General Health has a policy regarding communication with limited English proficiency patients and deaf and hard of hearing patients. LG Health must use only qualified interpreters.
If you are scheduling appointments for tests or procedures, ask the scheduler to request an interpreter for your appointment. Please state your language of preference.
Please contact your nurse, who will arrange interpretation services during your stay. If the patient is unable to make a request, a family member may contact the nurse to arrange interpretation services on his or her behalf.
For patients, family members or visitors who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, and who communicate primarily in ASL the organization provides Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) services in ASL, and/or contracted agency ASL interpreters.
Video Remote Interpretation or VRI uses video technology to provide interpreting services through a qualified remote interpreter who is not present in the same room as the other parties.
A member of our team of professional medical Spanish interpreters can help facilitate effective communication between you and your health care provider. We also have qualified bilingual personnel trained as medical interpreters to assist staff members with patients who need interpretation services in other languages. All our staff interpreters wear an orange badge, which will help you to identify them as qualified interpreters, and the language they speak.
Although we try our best to fulfill requests with an interpreter, it is not always possible due to external factors such as language, last minute requests, patients not showing up for pre-scheduled appointments, etc. Our staff will, after assessing patient’s communication needs, use our phone line that provides interpretation services in more than 150 different languages, and VRI services in several languages, including ASL and Spanish. Both services are available 24 hrs. 7 days a week.