Growing with Technology Awards

Language Assistance Telemedicine, Inc.

Customer Relationships
First Runner-Up

URL: www.LanguageAssistance.com
Location: Houston, TX
Employees: 7 full-time and 1 part-time, with 1,000 language interpreters (including American Sign Language interpreters) working as subcontractors, and connected through videoconferencing
Executive Sponsor: Co-Founders, Simon S. Gongora, CEO and Diana J. Gongora, President
Cisco Products: Cisco 2610XM and 2811 Routers, Cisco ASA5510 Adaptive Security Appliance, Cisco MCS 7800 Media Convergence Server, Cisco IP Phone 7940, Cisco Call Manager 4.2, Cisco IP Communicator 2.0, Cisco Unified Video Advantage 2.0.

Helping To Improve Healthcare—In Any Language

Since 1994, Language Assistance Telemedicine has been providing real-time language assistance to hospitals, enabling caregivers to communicate with patients who speak limited English or have hearing difficulties. Initially, the company used telephones to connect each hospital to a language interpreter. However, voice calls could not capture a patient's body language and facial expressions, which communicate so much about their condition. After extensive research, the company deployed the Cisco Video Advantage videoconferencing solution. Now, the company is helping hospitals improve their quality of care, through easy-to-operate, wireless videoconferencing that can be brought right to a patient's bedside.

Why More Hospitals Are Getting The Picture

The Language Assistance Telemedicine/Cisco videoconferencing kit (MEDVIKs™ kit – Medical Video Interpreter kit) has been readily accepted by IT (Information Technology) departments in over 100 hospitals in the US—and for good reason. It's downloadable to any hospital PC and can be used on any hospital cart, so it can be easily and inexpensively incorporated into a network, without the need for a dedicated videoconferencing facility. Best of all, the hospital can get a clear, crisp video connection to a live interpreter in any language or American Sign Language within seconds. And that gives caregivers—and their patients—greater peace of mind to deal with any medical condition.