Certified Bilingual Speaker List Growing

Since its start in September 2004, more than 650 employees have become certified bilingual speakers through HCHD’s bilingual differential program. This number exceeds the 500 certifications that officials expected for the program’s first whole year.

While employee response has been tremendous, we need even greater participation to assure effective communication with our non-English speaking patients, said Kaaren Riker, Senior Compensation Analyst and program coordinator.

HCHD’s bilingual differential program is the first of its kind in the Texas Medical Center. It rewards eligible employees for performing their jobs with the additional skill of communicating with patients in Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese dialects).

Certified bilingual speakers can be identified across the Hospital District by the oversized buttons they wear prominently on their clothes. The buttons read, “I speak ‘certified language.’ May I help you?” Employees receiving a bilingual differential are required to wear their buttons to show their availability to patients, physicians, clinical staff and translators.

“We want to make it easy for everyone to identify the certified bilingual speakers on duty,” Riker said. “Having these employees wear their buttons is essential. In cases where we find that staff are not wearing buttons, we reserve the right to suspend or discontinue the bilingual differential.”

A total of 275 different HCHD jobs are eligible for the differential. These are jobs in which employees consistently interact with non-English speaking patients. Newly hired employees also are eligible.

In HCHD, about 90 percent of non-English speakers require communication in Spanish. While the majority of bilingual employees will need to speak Spanish, other staff is needed to speak the other designated languages.

Employees must pass an oral language exam administered by Berlitz Languages Inc. in order to participate in this program.