Medical Interpreter's Guide to Telephone Interpreting

The IMIA announced the publication of a new guide for telephone interpreters. The guide includes information about telephone interpreting for interpreters in the medical field.

The announcement reads as follows:

The publication of a new guide on telephone interpreting was announced today. A Medical Interpreter's Guide to Telephone Interpreting is the first in a series of guides to be published by the International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA). The publication underwent a peer-review process and is intended to be a short primer on the topic.

"Telephone interpreting is used by countless hospitals and health care facilities throughout the world," explained Izabel Arocha, IMIA president, "Our goal is to help our members and the public at large to learn more about this important method of delivering language access to patients across the globe."

The phone-based interpreting service, which enables interpreters for hundreds of languages to be instantly accessible via telephone, was first introduced in Australia in the 1970s, but is now used in the United States, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Israel and many other countries, Arocha said.

Download a complimentary copy of the guide here.