Video conferencing allows real-time sign language interpretation

From ComputerWorld:

Kay Chiodo lays out a frightening scenario: A child is missing in an airport, and his mother, who is deaf, is frantically looking for him.

When the mother rushes to an airline employee for help, there's a communication breakdown. The employee doesn't know sign language, so the anxious mother writes a cryptic message that reads like it's been translated from a foreign language, something like "boy, 6, no see." Precious minutes slip away.

For Chiodo, that's unacceptable.

"It's a real challenge getting interpreters from one place to another in a timely manner, and sometimes a person's life depends on it," she says.

So Chiodo, CEO of Deaf Link Inc., turned to technology to address that problem. Deaf Link uses videoconferencing technology and a call center environment to instantly make American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters available to people who need help communicating. The company was a 2008 Computerworld Honors winner in the category of business and related services.

Through this service, deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals can communicate with employees at organizations of all types, without delays or scheduling requirements.

"Can you imagine going to the hospital with your child who is sick and not knowing what the doctor says, or not being able to tell the doctor your child is allergic to penicillin?" Chiodo asks. "Those kinds of things can be changed."

Olivia Ramirez, a patient advocate at Christus Santa Rosa Health Care, also in San Antonio, agrees. "Deaf Link has really saved a lot of time, especially for our doctors in the emergency room," she says. Ramirez adds that getting ASL interpreters to a site can sometimes take up to an hour.

Christus Santa Rosa Health Care also has seen its costs drop dramatically with Deaf Link. Now the hospital doesn't have to pay translators for the time they spend traveling to the site or the time they spend waiting to meet with patients and doctors. The average monthly cost for Deaf Link is about $1,400; before it started using the service, the hospital was spending about $3,200 for in-person ASL translators.