8/11/04 — Culturesmart to Deliver Medical Interpreting Training to over 100 Queens Health Network Bilingual Employees

Culturesmart is awarded contract to train bilingual employees of the Queens Health Network (QHN). This constitutes language specific training, with Spanish for example encompassing over 100 staff. Other languages include Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu. In collaboration with the Institute for Linguistic and Cultural Skills, Culturesmart will provide four training programs during the fall of 2004 at two hospitals, Elmhurst Hospital Center, and Queens Hospital Center. Each intensive training consists of 40 hours delivered in six days over three weeks. Culturesmart will also provide QHN with a Train-the-Trainer course that will prepare qualified QHN bilingual staff to become trainers in language coaching. “We’re thrilled to be able to provide such high quality training in New York. Through our needs assessment and customized systemic training approach, we are able to meet the very specific needs of QHN. As far as I know, Culturesmart is one of the few linguistic and cultural organizations that provide a broader range of skills and offers an extensive language-specific component in over 18 languages and dialects. And the list keeps growing…” says Figaro, Chief Executive Officer of Culturesmart. (www.culturesmart.org) 

Queens Health Network (QHN –  www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/hhc/qhn/home.html) is a unique health care provider, serving the largest and most ethnically diverse community in New York City, with immigrants from over 100 nations speaking 167 languages. QHN is comprised of 2 major teaching hospitals, 11 free standing medical clinics & 6 school-based health programs. It provides over a million ambulatory care visits annually to the residents of Queens. Consisting of two leading acute care facilities, Elmhurst and Queens Hospital Centers, 15 community-based medical centers and practices, and six school-based health centers, QHN has reached across this vast borough of two million to provide preventive and health care services where they are needed. QHN's 27 Residency Programs serve as the training ground for the country's finest young physicians. Many of these physicians in training continue their alliance with the network after graduation by developing practices in the community. QHN's hospital-based services are ranked among the top in the nation and have become the borough's major resource for specialized care. In the mid-1990s the Queens Health Network (QHN) began integrating HHC Family Health Services and Communicare Centers throughout Queens into a borough-wide healthcare delivery system that would provide a full continuum of care. Through the acquisition and renovation of these original sites and the opening of new ones, QHN demonstrate its commitment to expand accessible, quality primary care to the neighborhoods of Queens, with direct access to our hospital-based specialty care and diagnostic services.