Languages Needed In U.S. Hospitals.

Statistics released recently by the country’s major language services company, Tucson-based CyraCom International, showed changes in 2004 within the five languages most requested nationwide by its 700 health care customers.

Of 135 languages used in hospitals, 18 new ones emerged for the first time.

CyraCom reported that Spanish remained the most requested language for interpretation. The other four, in order, were Russian, Vietnamese, Korean and Polish. Polish was a newcomer in the top five requests, replacing Mandarin.

“In America, our melting pot of cultures is bubbling on high,” said CyraCom International CEO Michael D. Greenbaum. “And our health care facilities are dealing with near-scorching situations as they cope with the diversity of many voices in many languages.”

In 2003, Spanish was also No. 1, followed by Vietnamese, Russian, Mandarin and Korean.

Greenbaum cautioned that the figures offer little comfort to health care providers trying to have on staff people skilled in the languages necessary to service prospective patients.

“The reality today is that every hospital throughout the United States needs to be prepared for a person speaking literally any language to show up for routine or emergency care. Language proficiency becomes intertwined with diagnostic, treatment and liability issues,” he said.

For example, he said, the mid-Atlantic and Western states had a high number of requests for Asian languages compared with the South and Southeast. And there are variations across major cities. In Tucson, Somali was No. 3; In Denver, Vietnamese was the third most requested language; and Chicago’s No. 3 was Arabic, although Arabic has not been in the top five nationally since 2001.

For more information at http://www.cyracom.com