Language Services Community

Advancing human experience through language access.

Language access is essential to safe, equitable and person-centered healthcare. We invite members of The Beryl Institute to join the Language Services Community to connect with peers, share practical strategies and advance approaches that strengthen communication, understanding and trust across the healthcare experience.

Through collaboration and shared learning, the Language Services Community aims to elevate the role of language access in advancing equity, improving outcomes and ensuring every person feels heard, respected and understood throughout their healthcare journey.

Join the Community

Webinar Recordings

Webinar

Breaking Barriers: Advancing Language Access Through Rounding

Published March 3, 2026

PXE Credit Available

Explore how proactive interpreter rounding supports patients with limited English proficiency. This webinar highlights how daily visits from interpreter teams improve communication, empower patients to request interpreters, and strengthen advocacy. Learn practical methods for building inclusive systems that meet Joint Commission standards and promote equitable, patient-centered care. Speaker: Lyndsey Newman, MBA, MHA, LSSGB | Director,

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Webinar

Transforming Patient Care: Expanding Equitable Language Access with AI Across Every Touchpoint

Published January 15, 2026

PXE Credit Available

Complimentary – Clear communication is essential for equitable care, but for the approximately 25 million Americans with limited English proficiency (LEP), language remains a major barrier to safety and quality in healthcare. Though hospitals have improved clinical translation, most language access programs stop at the exam room door. Non-clinical staff—including reception and food services—often lack the

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Webinar

Breaking Barriers: Strategies for Effective Language Access in Healthcare

Published November 18, 2025

PXE Credit Available

Language access is a vital component of ensuring equitable, safe, and high-quality care for all patients. This panel discussion will explore how health systems are approaching language services from compliance and interpreter models to frontline staff engagement. Panelists will share lessons learned, strategies for training and empowering staff, and approaches for measuring the true impact

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Webinar

Improving Interpreter Services Documentation for Equitable LEP Care

Published July 22, 2025

PXE Credit Available

Patients with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) face significant barriers to accessing quality healthcare, leading to disparities in outcomes. Utilizing qualified medical interpreters is essential for bridging these gaps, yet systematic integration of interpreter services remains a challenge for many healthcare organizations. This webinar highlights the journey of an academic health system in New England that

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Webinar

From Words to Wellness: Promoting Health Equity through Translation

Published December 7, 2023

Complimentary – This webinar will explore the critical intersection of language access and health equity. This engaging event will cover a range of topics, including: Language Barriers: Address the challenges posed by language barriers and their impact on healthcare access and outcomes. Translation Technology: Discover advancements in translation technology and how they are revolutionizing communication

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Webinar

Falling on Deaf Ears: Special Considerations for Deaf Patients in Healthcare

Published October 3, 2023

Often clinicians view Deaf patients as the same as other Limited English Proficiency (LEP) patients. Not knowing that the Deaf community has its own culture and linguistic needs often leads to poorer health outcomes and compliance for the Deaf community. It also leads to lack of equity and access in their own healthcare or worse,

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Webinar

How a NYC Health System Leveraged Their Values to Serve Their Most Vulnerable Patients During the Pandemic

Published June 16, 2020

Delivering safe, compassionate, and patient-centered care to the most vulnerable patients during the COVID19 crisis is only possible when an organization aligns its core values and staff commits to serving a higher purpose.

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Webinar

NotasAbiertas Para Todos – OpenNotes Patient Navigation Program

Published May 28, 2020

Learn about Mount Sinai Health System’s Spanish-Language Preferred OpenNotes Patient Navigation Program.

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Webinar

Language Access and Patient-Centered Care

Published June 6, 2017

Explore ways to reduce misunderstandings that stem from linguistic, cultural and systemic difference and dissimilar expectations between patients and their providers.

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Webinar

Family and Patient Centeredness Remix: Addressing the Cultural and Linguistic Gap in Small Bites

Published December 2, 2014

Explore the main ingredients of an effectual hospital-based Language Access Program.

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Webinar

Improving the Patient Experience for Limited English Proficient (LEP) Patients

Published December 2, 2014

The need for improved communication with limited English proficient (LEP) patients has risen steadily.

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PX Learning Bites

Learning Bite

When Communication Is Safety: Why Testing Bilingual Staff Matters

Published June 15, 2026

What happens when bilingual staff speak with patients in another language, but their medical language skills have never been validated? In this Learning Bite, Rebecca Ruckno of Geisinger Health System shares how the organization partnered with LanguageLine Solutions to implement a systemwide bilingual proficiency testing program that ensures accurate clinical communication and supports regulatory compliance.

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Learning Bite

A Multilingual Approach to Telehealth and Electronic Records

Published August 19, 2022

Cory Markert, Sales Manager at LanguageLine Solutions, shares the impact of providing on-demand interpreters and access to multilingual patient portals on patient experience

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Research Papers

Grant Report

Measuring, Assessing and Meeting the Needs of Primarily Spanish-Speaking Patients in the Hospital Setting

Published June 21, 2016

The purpose of this study was to assess the language needs of the Tallahassee Memorial patient population based on data gathered at the admission and registration portion of the patient stay.

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Patient Experience Journal (PXJ) Articles

PXJ Article

Documentation and Dashboard Driven Quality and Safety Improvement in Interpreter Services for Limited English Proficient Patients

Published May 4, 2026

Limited English Proficiency is known as an independent driver of disparities in patient’s access to healthcare and their healthcare outcomes. The Joint Commission standards require that health systems document language services delivery to patients with limited English proficiency in a systematic way. Our health system had not historically utilized a methodical system for documenting language

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PXJ Article

‘Making it Meaningful’: Co-designing an intervention to improve medication safety for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds accessing cancer services.

Published August 2, 2023

This study reports on the process of using an adapted Experienced-Based Co-Design (EBCD) conducted with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) consumers and cancer service staff to co-design the novel ‘Making it Meaningful’(MiM) instrument at a cancer service in Australia. Multi-source experiential and contextual information was gathered in phase 1 of the co-design and this evidence,

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PXJ Article

Enhancing patient-centered care for limited English proficiency patients through Tell Me More®: A student-driven initiative to explore the patient as a person and develop students’ communication skills

Published November 2, 2022

Angela Liu Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell Alicia W. Leong Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Alice Fornari Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell Taranjeet Kalra Ahuja Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell

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PXJ Article

Sociodemographic characteristics and patient and family experience survey response biases

Published September 1, 2022

Enhancing Patient and Family Experience (PFE) is vital to the delivery of quality healthcare services. Sociodemographic differences affect health outcomes and experiences, but research is limited on biases in PFE survey methodology. We sought to assess survey participation rates across sociodemographic characteristics. This retrospective study analyzed a health system’s ambulatory PFE survey data, collected January

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PXJ Article

Refugees’ perceptions of primary care: What makes a good doctor’s visit?

Published November 13, 2019

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PXJ Article

Patient participation in medical consultations: the experience of patients from various ethnolinguistic backgrounds

Published June 26, 2019

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PXJ Article

Experiences of communication barriers between physicians and immigrant patients: A systematic review and thematic synthesis

Published April 25, 2017

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Blog

Blog

The Impact of Community Characteristics on Patient Experience

Published March 11, 2026

By: Richard Goo and Dr. Nicole Kirchhoffer, RN Maimonides Medical Center  When individuals visit a hospital, either for their own or their loved one’s care, their expectations are based on the composite experience of their lifestyles, cultures, and background. Whether their goal is for their health to be fully restored or to maintain their quality

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Blog

Declining a Qualified Medical Interpreter: Helping Patients Understand the Risks

Published June 11, 2024

By Tamara Cardoso, UConn Health At UConn Health, we are committed to putting patient experience at the center of our care. We recognize that delivering safe, high-quality, patient-centered care necessitates effective communication at every interaction. In healthcare, ineffective communication can lead to heightened anxiety, increased stress levels, and potential misunderstandings. Importantly, it can pose significant

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Blog

A Commitment to DEI: On-Site Interpreters for Patient-Preferred Languages

Published March 16, 2023

When the words “Penn State” are heard, many people often think immediately of FOOTBALL!  One of my favorite stories – and perhaps the lesser known – is the Penn State football story that dates back to racial segregation in the 1940s when The Pennsylvania State University football team agreed that it would not play games where their

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Blog

5 Elements Not to Leave Out of Your Language Access Plan

Published March 16, 2023

Outcome-based care is changing the healthcare industry. When healthcare systems take a patient-centric approach to care, they can improve patient outcomes and overall satisfaction while also increasing job satisfaction among providers. As providers focus on the patient experience, it’s essential to consider the barriers to health equity that affect limited-English proficient (LEP) patients.  LEP individuals

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Case Studies

Case Study

Breaking the Language Barrier in Epic: UMass Memorial Health Integrates LanguageLine for Equitable Care

Published February 9, 2026

UMass Memorial Health integrated one-click LanguageLine interpreter access directly into Epic, removing barriers that previously slowed or limited use of language services for patients with limited English proficiency. By embedding interpretation into clinical workflows and automating documentation, the system improved adoption, compliance, and equitable communication at the point of care.

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Case Study

In-Language Communication Improves Patient & Family Experience

Published April 10, 2023

In this case study, a children’s hospital shares how a partnership with a language interpretation service company enabled their organization to better support the diverse languages of those they serve through improved communication.

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Case Study

Language Access Matters: Caring for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Patients During and Post COVID-19

Published September 29, 2021

Healthcare professionals wearing personal protective equipment is a barrier to deaf/hard of hearing patients who rely primarily on facial expression to assist with communication or the few who may lip-read

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View All Language Services Resources

Language Services Workgroup

Part of the Institute's Community Council, the Language Services Workgroup is made up of individuals committed to engaging with one another, sharing ideas and expanding the engagement around language access  in The Beryl Institute community.

View the Council