September 28, 2020

Patient Access Line - New Service from Interpreter Services

 

Interpreter Services is excited to announce its new Patient Access Line (PAL). 

Patients who are Limited English Proficient (LEP) have difficulty calling the health system due to a language barrier.  We have created PAL to address language disparities between Michigan Medicine staff and our patient population.  PAL is a phone number that LEP patients can use to contact Michigan Medicine to discuss anything related to their care within our institution.    

A Michigan Medicine interpreter will answer the call in the patient’s language, connect the call to the appropriate area, and interpret for the patient as they speak with Michigan Medicine staff.    

This service is available 24/7.  When our own staff interpreters are not available, the call will be routed to a vendor, which we’ve been using through a service called DIAL.  We will continue to use DIAL for languages that Michigan Medicine does not staff.

PAL phone numbers:

Arabic                      734-615-1714

Chinese Mandarin    734-615-4882

Chinese Cantonese  734-615-1363

French                     734-998-6774

Japanese                 734-998-6757

Korean                    734-615-5333

Russian                   734-615-3230

Spanish                   734-539-5090

When Interpreter staff is not available, the call will be routed to the external vendor through DIAL.

Earlier this year, Interpreter Services introduced a call service, MTerp, for faculty and staff to access Michigan Medicine interpreters directly. 

Visit Interpreter Services to learn more about all the services offered by this team.