Language Assistance
At Westlake Hospital, we speak your language!
Westlake Hospital has a century-long tradition of serving successive waves of immigrant communities, and we continue to strive to meet the needs of the increasingly diverse communities we serve.
We believe that clear and accurate health information is essential to the delivery of quality compassionate health care. To help assure the highest quality patient care, medical interpreter services are available at our sites, at no cost to the patient, whenever language or communication barriers exist between our staff and our patients.
In Our Facilities
Our interpreters must be qualified to perform interpreter services in a health care setting. Many of Westlake Hospital's physicians, nurses, chaplains and others communicate in languages other than English, including Spanish, Polish, and other languages represented in our communities. Other Westlake employees have attended more than 100 hours of intensive training in order to provide competent, in-person language interpreter services.
In the event qualified interpreters are not available in-person at our sites, qualified telephonic medical interpreters are also available. The service provides access to interpreters in more than 180 languages.
Translated Documents
On a periodic basis, we determine which vital documents should be translated into different languages. These documents include, but are not limited to the following:
- Financial assistance applications and policies
- Consent forms
- Discharge instructions
- Education materials
- Patient rights handbooks
- Admission documents
In addition to language assistance for non-English speaking patients, we provide American Sign Language medical interpreters, as needed.
How to Reach Us
If you need an interpreter when you are at one of our facilities, talk to a staff member or dial '0' on a facility phone.
If you are hearing impaired, you may dial the TTY/TTD provided.
Have Concerns?
If you have a concern about interpreter services at our facility, please call our Guest Relations department at our hospitals or the Illinois Department of Public Health at 1-880-252-4343.