viaLanguage.com -Translation Articles

Healthcare Best Practices

Budgeting For Translation
Preparing for an upcoming year of translations.

Thinking Ahead…
Do you ever stop to think about how many documents your healthcare organization produces for patients and clients in a typical year? Whether it’s information related to membership services, evidence of coverage documents, marketing pieces, community communications, or even your Web site, there is a lot of content that gets published in one way or another. Now, think about how much of that material you need to translate into other languages for your community’s immigrant population. All of those documents really add up over the year in terms of time and money. Here are some easy ways your organization can get a handle on making the translation budgeting process easier and planning ahead to look at your ongoing need for translation services from your LSP...

Don’t Forget Governmental Compliance and Federal Funding
In order to stay in compliance with some specific federal and state regulations, not to mention any conditions agreed upon by accepting some governmental grants and funds, there are some documents that your organization should figure into the budget right off the bat. Anything that is essential to improving the healthcare of individuals and families should be translated. Documents detailing how to apply for healthcare services, vaccination scheduling requirements for children starting school, and other material related to immigrants’ health and well-being should be translated.

Demographics in your Community
If your healthcare organization receives funds and grants to make sure material is translated to serve Limited English Proficiency families and individuals, it makes sense to focus your attention and translation budget on the languages that are spoken the most in your district in order to make the best use of those funds. A good rule of thumb when considering languages you should translate into is whether or not there is a population of 10% within a community. Look at the demographics of your service base so that you concentrate on the top two or three immigrant languages that are most represented in your area. If one of these languages is Spanish, for example, even though there may be many countries represented in your immigrant population, it can save money to translate material into a neutral form of Spanish instead of translating the material twice into “Mexican Spanish” or “Cuban Spanish”, for example.

Keep in mind that the demographics of your community might suddenly change during the year. If you budget for a few different languages, you will be able to switch the focus to another language if a population grows. If a population happens to decrease, you could use the extra budget allotment to providing more in-depth translated information to another population instead.

Leverage Past Translations and Translation Memory for Savings
Are there documents your organization uses that require small updates every year, but the majority of the text stays the same? In that case, ask your LSP (Language Service Provider) to maintain a Translation Memory for repetitive material, or ask them to archive past projects for quick reference and use later. The next time the document needs to be translated, you’ll likely only have to consider minor revisions instead of the cost of translating the entire set of materials again from scratch.

Also, keep in mind that some web content, once translated, can be repurposed into documents for distribution many times over.

Save on Desktop Publishing Costs
One way to stretch your translation budget further is to consider decreasing the amount of desktop publishing work for your documents. Perhaps conveying important information for some documents is the most important to your patients, and putting them in a fancy format is not critical to most projects. When you add the costs of redoing some complicated DTP to fit languages that have 25% language expansion rates from English into other languages, the costs can increase substantially.

Sharing Documents within Healthcare Organizations
Sometimes it can really help to pool your resources and documents within your organization or sister-organizations. If several hospitals within your larger organization send out the same document and only the clinic name or phone numbers change, consider translating a document to use as a template throughout your organization. Setting things like the date and the doctor’s name within square brackets and letting your LSP know not to translate this material can be a simple way to distribute translated material throughout the system.

Healthcare budgets are sometimes not based on the calendar year, so it can sometimes help to plan your year so that some material is translated in the calendar year of 2007 and some in 2008, for example. That way you can focus your funds on the times of the year when the most documents need to be translated (for example towards the Summer and Fall of each year).

With sometimes limited funds to healthcare organizations these days, any money saved or stretched is welcome! For more ideas about how to serve the largest portion of your community with efficiency, please contact your viaLanguage representative.


	viaLanguage Translation Articles Healthcare Best Practices Budgeting For Translation Preparing for an upcoming year of translations. Thinking Ahead… Do you ever stop to think about how many documents your healthcare organization produces for patients and clients in a typical year? Whether it’s information related to membership services, evidence of coverage documents, marketing pieces, community communications, or even your Web site, there is a lot of content that gets published in one way or another. Now, think about how much of that material you need to translate into other languages for your community’s immigrant population. All of those documents really add up over the year in terms of time and money. Here are some easy ways your organization can get a handle on making the translation budgeting process easier and planning ahead to look at your ongoing need for translation services from your LSP... Don’t Forget Governmental Compliance and Federal Funding In order to stay in compliance with some specific federal and state regulations, not to mention any conditions agreed upon by accepting some governmental grants and funds, there are some documents that your organization should figure into the budget right off the bat. Anything that is essential to improving the healthcare of individuals and families should be translated. Documents detailing how to apply for healthcare services, vaccination scheduling requirements for children starting school, and other material related to immigrants’ health and well-being should be translated. Demographics in your Community If your healthcare organization receives funds and grants to make sure material is translated to serve Limited English Proficiency families and individuals, it makes sense to focus your attention and translation budget on the languages that are spoken the most in your district in order to make the best use of those funds. A good rule of thumb when considering languages you should translate into is whether or not there is a population of 10% within a community. Look at the demographics of your service base so that you concentrate on the top two or three immigrant languages that are most represented in your area. If one of these languages is Spanish, for example, even though there may be many countries represented in your immigrant population, it can save money to translate material into a neutral form of Spanish instead of translating the material twice into “Mexican Spanish” or “Cuban Spanish”, for example. Keep in mind that the demographics of your community might suddenly change during the year. If you budget for a few different languages, you will be able to switch the focus to another language if a population grows. If a population happens to decrease, you could use the extra budget allotment to providing more in-depth translated information to another population instead. Leverage Past Translations and Translation Memory for Savings Are there documents your organization uses that require small updates every year, but the majority of the text stays the same? In that case, ask your LSP (Language Service Provider) to maintain a Translation Memory for repetitive material, or ask them to archive past projects for quick reference and use later. The next time the document needs to be translated, you’ll likely only have to consider minor revisions instead of the cost of translating the entire set of materials again from scratch. Also, keep in mind that some web content, once translated, can be repurposed into documents for distribution many times over. Save on Desktop Publishing Costs One way to stretch your translation budget further is to consider decreasing the amount of desktop publishing work for your documents. Perhaps conveying important information for some documents is the most important to your patients, and putting them in a fancy format is not critical to most projects. When you add the costs of redoing some complicated DTP to fit languages that have 25% language expansion rates from English into other languages, the costs can increase substantially. Sharing Documents within Healthcare Organizations Sometimes it can really help to pool your resources and documents within your organization or sister-organizations. If several hospitals within your larger organization send out the same document and only the clinic name or phone numbers change, consider translating a document to use as a template throughout your organization. Setting things like the date and the doctor’s name within square brackets and letting your LSP know not to translate this material can be a simple way to distribute translated material throughout the system. Healthcare budgets are sometimes not based on the calendar year, so it can sometimes help to plan your year so that some material is translated in the calendar year of 2007 and some in 2008, for example. That way you can focus your funds on the times of the year when the most documents need to be translated (for example towards the Summer and Fall of each year). With sometimes limited funds to healthcare organizations these days, any money saved or stretched is welcome! For more ideas about how to serve the largest portion of your community with efficiency, please contact your viaLanguage representative.