104 CMR, § 27.17

Current through Register 1531, September 27, 2024

Section 27.17 - Interpreter Services

(1) For the purposes of 104 CMR 27.17, the following words shall have the following meanings:

(a)Competent Interpreter Services. Interpreter services performed by a person who is fluent in English and in the language of a non-English speaker, who is trained and proficient in the skill and ethics of interpreting and who is knowledgeable about the specialized terms and concepts that need to be interpreted for purposes of receiving care and treatment.

(b)Facility. A Department-operated hospital, community mental health center with inpatient unit, or psychiatric unit within a public health hospital; a Department-licensed psychiatric hospital; or a Department-licensed psychiatric unit within a general hospital.

(c)Non-English Speaker. A person who cannot speak or understand, or has difficulty speaking or understanding, English because the speaker primarily or only uses a spoken language other than English.

(2) Each facility shall in connection with the delivery of inpatient services, if an appropriate bilingual practitioner is not available, provide competent interpreter services to every nonEnglish speaker who is a patient.

(3) Based on the volume and diversity of non-English-speaking patients served by the facility, the facility shall use reasonable judgment as to whether to employ, or to contract for, the on-call use of one or more interpreters for particular languages when needed, or to use competent telephonic or televiewing interpreter services; provided that such facility shall only use competent telephonic or televiewing interpreter services in situations where either:

(a) there is no reasonable way to anticipate the need for employed or contracted interpreters for a particular language; or

(b) there occurs, in a particular instance, an inability to provide competent services by an employed or contracted interpreter.

(4) Interpreter services shall be available 24 hours per day and seven days per week.

(5) The facility shall not require, suggest, or encourage the use of family members or friends of patients as interpreters and shall not, except in exceptional circumstances, use minor children as interpreters.

(6) The facility shall post signs and provide written notification of the right to and availability of interpreter services to patients in their primary language.

(7) The facility shall develop written policies and procedures that are consistent with 104 CMR 27.17 and that assist staff and patients in accessing interpreter services.