(Clearwater, FL) July 24, 2014—While healthcare facilities and U.S. courts have each reported finding difficulty in providing quality interpretation services to non-English speakers within their systems, that demand doesn’t appear to be slowing down. According to Common Sense Advisory, the language service market will grow from $2 billion in 2014 to $2.3 billion in 2016 (1); additionally, officials at Stratus Video Interpreting expect $1 billion of this market to shift over to video remote interpreting (http://www.stratusvideo.com/ ) (VRI) in lieu of face-to-face and over-the-phone interpreting (OPI). Stratus maintains that the growing limited English proficiency (LEP) population within the U.S. is signaling a need for more efficient, cost-effective and advanced technology with regard to language services—and with such technology available, Stratus is calling for nationwide standardization in an effort to maintain equal access to language services for every U.S. citizen.
Currently, courts and hospitals nationwide are finding themselves facing substantial delays and costs due to an increasing LEP population combined with a lack of timely access to qualified interpreters. As of 2011, the U.S. LEP population sits at 25 million—an increase of 81% since 1980—and 94% of those individuals reside in core urban areas or surrounding counties. (2) According to Stratus CEO Sean Belanger, healthcare facilities and courts located within these urban areas must often hire an interpreter from another county, and as a result, they are left facing the cost of gas/mileage, in addition to the interpreter’s hourly rate—which, with overtime, can reach upwards of $55 per hour for certified and professionally qualified court interpreters. (3) As costs and demand have steadily increased, a more affordable and effective solution is being sought by healthcare and court systems alike—a solution which some say has been found in VRI, which combines the benefits of both OPI and face-to-face interpreting by offering the same personal one-on-one feel of face-to-face interpreting, but with the cost structure and speed of answer equal to that of OPI.
“VRI is much more economical and efficient than either face-to-face or OPI interpreting,” said Belanger. “With VRI, you’re getting high quality face-to-face interpreting, combined with the affordability of on demand interpreting—you only pay for what you use, when you use it. VRI gets interpreters in front of patients faster, is available 24 hours a day, and accomplishes all of this at lower cost.” More.
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Perhaps if the court is in some real outbacks--in a place where live interpreters are totally inaccessible, that might be a partial solution, not really a great one, though.
[Edited at 2014-07-26 13:01 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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While video-remote interpreting may be useful in cases that involve remote areas or cases which require specific language interpreters that are hard to find, the issue should be viewed in ways that are analogous to other professions that serve the courts and healthcare settings. For example, can we, with the intent to reduce costs, have video-remote la... See more
While video-remote interpreting may be useful in cases that involve remote areas or cases which require specific language interpreters that are hard to find, the issue should be viewed in ways that are analogous to other professions that serve the courts and healthcare settings. For example, can we, with the intent to reduce costs, have video-remote lawyering, video-remote judging, video-remote doctoring? Even a doctor can dispense medical advice by video and send a prescription to a local pharmacy by computer while a nurse handles a patient’s vitals face-to-face. The problem with VRI is that if only the LEP population is routinely subject to receiving services via video, there is an inherent risk that the practice of VRI becomes discriminatory against a particular group of people -- in this case, a group of people with different national origins. ▲ Collapse
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I don't think it would be discriminatory against any people--it would just be very inaccurate and could result in a mistrial, and perhaps even more expensive than live interpreting. It may also be forbidden by law in some states.
[Edited at 2014-07-28 20:44 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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1. Better Availability: in California, recent laws being enacted require a licensed medical interpreter to be available if MediCal funds are to be reimbursed to the clinic. On site interpreters require anywhere from 3 (if you're lucky) to... See more
1. Better Availability: in California, recent laws being enacted require a licensed medical interpreter to be available if MediCal funds are to be reimbursed to the clinic. On site interpreters require anywhere from 3 (if you're lucky) to 24 hours to confirm availability. Similarly, when non-English speaking inmates are arrested and booked, but require an interpreter to assist the defendant's attorney within 24 hours, it is much easier to simply have an on-demand VRI system available, and if the defendant's attorney feels it is inadequate, the attorney will reschedule the meeting for a future appointment. VRI (and telephonic OPI) exists to address this issue of availability. On site is obviously "ideal", but in exigent situations, it is simply not realistic. So this issue is not unique to remote areas, but any unpredictable high urgency situation. Initially, the facilities and end clients will quickly recognize the compromises of VRI (lack of clarity, lack of quality, etc.), and will limit the initial applications to exigent circumstances. However, because these problems are an engineering obstacle, eventually we will figure out the technical problems so that VRI at least offers perfectly clear voice and high quality images.
2. Lower Cost: The biggest savings is the 2 hour minimum (e.g. interpreter travel time). With on-demand, clients pay only for the minutes used and at worst pay anywhere from a 5 minute to a 15 minute minimum. For intermittent facilities where they may regularly request an interpreter at 9AM 1PM and 4PM for no more than 20 minutes each time, VRI is a huge cost savings. Having an interpreter there (assuming it's even the same language) all day is between $400 and $800. Having an interpreter reappear each time requires a 6 hour minimum over the course of those 3 visits. But VRI would only cost a total of 60 minutes. This is probably the biggest benefit to facilities that require interpreters regularly, but only intermittently.
3. Value to Interpreter. So here is where things fall apart depending on the agency's pricing model. The agency does not have to pay the interpreter any less per minute than what is currently paid, because just the above benefits of #1 and #2 are more than enough to justify the switch for many non-critical use cases. Ideally, an interpreter would get paid the same hourly as she would on-site, and thus receive the same compensation for the time interpreted, but without the aggravation of bad traffic and running late. Unfortunately, this system also invites abuses by agencies who attempt to drive prices down further by establishing cheaper call centers offshore in countries where native speakers of the language live (e.g. Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, etc.). Although the quality is obviously lower, this pricing unfortunately resets the expectations of the market and pressures the entire industry to cut and cut their charges to be competitive with the offshore call centers. As we all know, when there is economic pressure, an inferior solution will be the preferred solution as long as enough people believe in it, regardless of what the experts say; this is why the iPhone beat Blackberry, even though the very first iPhone was so bad that most tech writers called it a failure and Blackberry just laughed and discounted the threat. But every 6 months, the iPhone got better and better until it changed the entire cell phone industry. VRI is at this precipice right now - lots of bugs to work out, but nothing the next 24 months cannot fix.
4. Future of VRI. VRI is for special use cases. Just like there are instances where a doctor or attorney over the phone is "good enough", there will always be situations where one MUST HAVE an on-site interpreter. The only question is whether VRI will be the 80% solution or the 20% solution for the various markets that require it. I don't know the answer to this, but I can tell you that every agency is desperate to buy technology that allows them to offer VRI because their end customers are requesting it. ▲ Collapse
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