A Colorado hospital profits from resolving language barriers

National A Colorado hospital profits from resolving language barriers April 16, 202612:01 AM ET By  Halle Zander Jen Quevedo, center, serves as a medical interpreter for a patient at Grand River Health in Rifle, Colo. Quevedo now serves as the hospital's language access coordinator. Ashlie Bramley/Grand River Health hide caption toggle caption Ashlie Bramley/Grand River Health RIFLE, Colo. — Maria Olivo started serving as her mom's interpreter when she was about five or six years old, whether they were at a bank or a doctor's office. They lived in Rifle, Colo., a desert town of about 10,000 people, where roughly 36% of people speak Spanish at home. Olivo often felt the weight of that responsibility and worried she would get something wrong. "I'm pretty sure that a lot of it I messed up," Olivo said last month at Grand River Health, Rifle's 57-bed hospital. "I wasn't sure half of the time, right? I was just a kid." Sponsor Message She did this for 12 years — until she was about 18, "feeling like, 'I hope that was the right word. I hope I relayed back what she needs to do right.'" Olivo eventually refused to serve as an ad hoc interpreter when her mom needed help communicating at the gynecologist's office. "You do need to have somebody that knows what they are talking about — that have that terminology, and that they are able to really be your interpreter versus be your daughter," Olivo said. Olivo is now a quality analyst for Grand River, where she's seen other families go through the same thing. In a series of focus groups in 2023, Hispanic and Latino community members told hospital staff that communication barriers created unnecessary confusion. Maria Olivo is a quality analyst at Grand River Health and helps manage the hospital's interpreter program. Halle Zander/Aspen Public Radio hide caption toggle caption Halle Zander/Aspen Public Radio "There's nobody that can really help me in my language," Olivo said. "Walking in, [they] kind of felt unwelcome just bec...