Addressing Health Care Disparities Through Cultural Competence
Many patients need to receive health care services in languages other than English. At Steward, we are dedicated to ensuring that all our patients can freely communicate with their health care providers at all times.
Steward has highly trained teams of medical interpreters available at each of our hospitals to facilitate communication between our providers and their Limited English Proficiency (LEP) patients. As a community-based accountable care organization, our interpreters are well versed in the top languages of the communities we serve and sensitive to their specific needs. We also provide access to trained medical interpreters via telephone and remote video interpretation to ensure that we can support more than 200 languages and dialects for both scheduled and unscheduled appointments 24 hours a day. Our technology includes support for American Sign Language when in-person interpreters are unavailable.
Our interpreters are experts at helping patients navigate their health care experiences and ensuring that their cultural traditions are respected. We also offer a number of educational support services directly to LEP patients in their preferred languages. We are proud to have a diverse, experienced team of professionals to ensure our patients and providers have their language and cultural access needs promptly served.
Federal, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Joint Commission regulations govern the role of interpreter services in health care. Steward’s predecessor, Caritas Christi Health Care, strongly advocated for the 2001 Massachusetts Emergency Room Interpreter Law and similar initiatives with the understanding that improved language access is a win-win for health care providers and the communities they serve. Caritas was also the founding member of the Forum On the Coordination of Interpreter Services (FOCIS), a medical interpreter leadership association promoting best practices in Massachusetts. Steward Health Care remains committed to the mission of providing a consistent standard of care for all patients in their preferred language(s) regardless of circumstance.
Interpreter Services
Click on a link below to learn more about Interpreter Services at the Steward hospital nearest you.
Carney Hospital, Dorchester, MA
Good Samaritan Medical Center, Brockton, MA
Holy Family Hospital, Methuen, MA
Holy Family Hospital at Merrimack Valley, Haverhill, MA
Nashoba Valley Medical Center, Ayer, MA
New England Sinai Hospital, Stoughton, MA
Saint Anne’s Hospital, Fall River, MA
St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, Brighton, MA
Featured Interpreter
Carla Fogaren
System Director, Diversity Initiatives and Interpreter Services
Carla Fogaren, RN is the System Director of Diversity Initiatives and Interpreter Services for Steward Health Care. She also serves as Steward's Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Compliance Officer. Born to Portuguese-speaking parents in Angola and raised in South Africa, Carla moved to Massachusetts with her family as a teenager. She is well versed in many languages with English being her fourth. Prior to assuming her current role, Carla spent more than 20 years building interpreter, community outreach and mission resources at Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton. Carla can be reached at 781-375-3197 or carla.fogaren@steward.org.