Swahili most translated language at The Medical Center

BOWLING GREEN,Ky.-For limited English speakers it can be difficult and often intimidating to seek medical help. In The Medical Center at Bowling Green more than 60 languages, including sign language, are quickly and easily translated.

Two years ago, The Medical Center started using Stratus, a system that allows patients to communicate with medically qualified interpreters.

At The Medical Center, nurses say the most translated language is Swahili.

“In South-Central Kentucky, Bowling Green area, we have over 65 different languages spoken. We do have Spanish speaking individuals locally that customarily have been our number two language behind English. Now we’re seeing populations of Swahili, Burmese, Tagalog,” said Angela James, a registered nurse at The Medical Center.

The system allows for face-to-face interaction which has been especially useful for patients who are deaf.

“You can click the ASL one and someone will show up within a minute. Before what we were having to do is call an on-call person. If we had an American Sign Language person come in, we would have to wait for them to come in and actually interpret the sign language, and we don’t have to do that anymore,” said Ashely Hardy, a registered nurse at The Medical Center.

Since using Stratus, the hospital has seen patient wait times reduce significantly.

“If it takes a while for us to take care of our patients because we can’t communicate with them, then that is unfortunate for us and it’s also unfortunate for the patient. So, it’s really cool when we can access the language line and just like that communicate with our patients. I’ve never had a language that I needed to talk to someone in, that wasn’t on this,” said Hardy.

As Bowling Green continues to become more diverse, nurses say the need for an effective translating system has grown significantly.

“It’s growing, and we expect we’ll see more languages. Thank goodness we have this program because not only can we do the video remote interpreting, if this service doesn’t have the video interpretation, it does have the ability to do audio and it has over 230 languages,” said James.

Following Swahili, Spanish is the second most translated language at the hospital.