The NCIHC will continue to host webinars and panel discussions about language access with the “NCIHC On the Road” series throughout 2024. These virtual events will join interpreters, advocates, patients, hospital administrators from risk management, compliance and patient experience, and other stakeholders for learning and discussion around building infrastructure in areas where public investment and oversight in language access is critical.
Webinar Description:
Section 1557 Final Rule – What’s New and What’s Next?
On April 26, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) advancing protections against discrimination in health care. By taking bold action to strengthen protections against discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, and disability, this rule reduces language access barriers, expands physical and digital accessibility, tackles bias in health technology, and much more. Join our panel of subject matter experts for a discussion of what’s truly “new” in this new final rule with a focus on healthcare language access, and what’s “next” for healthcare providers, insurers, grantees and others in terms of Section 1557 compliance. The panel will also discuss the essential role of a Section 1557 Coordinator in a healthcare institution.
About the Panelists:
Mara Youdelman
Mara Youdelman is the Managing Director, Federal Advocacy at the National Health Law Program’s Washington D.C. offices. Mara has worked at the National Health Law Program since 2000 on issues that include Medicaid & CHIP, the Affordable Care Act, language access, and civil rights (including Section 1557 and demographic data collection). Mara coordinates the National Health Law Program’s federal legislative and administrative work, leading the organization’s efforts at protecting and expanding access to and quality of health care for low-income and underserved populations. Mara also co-chairs The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Health Care Task Force and its Policy & Enforcement Committee.
Recognized as a national expert on language access in healthcare settings, Mara has written a number of reports and participated on expert advisory panels on the subject. Mara was named a 2010 Health Reform Champion by SHIRE (Summit Health Institute for Research and Education) and a 2011 NCIHC Language Access Champion. Mara also served as a Founding Commissioner for the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI). In 2023, she rejoined CCHI as a Commissioner for a three-year term.
Before joining the National Health Law Program, Mara completed a teaching fellowship at Georgetown University Law Center’s Federal Legislation Clinic and spent two years litigating for the Administration for Children’s Services in New York City. Mara earned her LL.M. in Advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center in 2000, her J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 1996, and her B.A. from Tufts University in 1991. She also founded AWARE: Actively Working for Acquaintance Rape Education, an interactive educational program on acquaintance rape.
Shawn Norris
Shawn Norris, Ed K-12 | NIC | CoreCHI-P, is a healthcare language access leader, holding multiple key positions including President of the Florida Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (FRID) and Commissioner for the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters. With a background enriched by his Deaf parents, Shawn is an active advocate in the Deaf community. He’s spent over a decade in the interpreting field, mentoring emerging interpreters and founding a local agency to enhance language accessibility in Jacksonville. Currently, he’s developing Hello Interpreters, an online community for interpreters and translators. Shawn is one of the few practitioners to have held ADA Coordinator, Section 1557 Coordinator, and Interpreter Services Coordinator roles concurrently within a hospital system.
Joan Cox
Joan Cox is Yuma Regional Medical Center’s Senior Vice President and Chief Experience Officer. She and her team work across every department in the organization to foster a culture of service excellence while enhancing patient and family relations. With over 30 years of experience in health care, Joan has focused explicitly on the patient experience since 2015. Previously, she served as a patient experience coach and held leadership positions as the National Director and National Senior Director of Patient Experience with Steward Health Care, based in Dallas, TX. During her tenure, she designed and implemented programs to improve culture and best practices for patient experience. Joan recently joined YRMC in 2023 as their first Chief Experience Officer. In her ongoing work with frontline staff, hospital leaders and providers, she nurtures outstanding care at every touch point — from scheduling to discharge to follow-up care — in both the inpatient and ambulatory areas. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. She received the Certified Patient Experience Professional (CPXP) designation from the Patient Experience Institute, an affiliate of the Beryl Institute.
About the Moderator:
Cindy Roat
Cindy Roat is an international consultant on language access in health care. A native of upstate New York, she spent a decade working in rural areas of Latin America before moving to Seattle to earn her Masters degree in International Public Health from the University of Washington. Cindy entered the interpreting world in 1992 and quickly became certified by Washington State as a medical and social-service Spanish-English interpreter. Her interest in systems change, however, led her into teaching interpreters, trainers and medical providers the basics of interpreting practice and consulting with healthcare administrators around the country on how to improve their language access programs. Cindy spent three years at Seattle Children’s Hospital, managing their unique Bilingual Patient Navigator program, before returning to her national consulting work.
Over the past two decades, Cindy has made significant contributions, both in the U.S. and abroad, in many areas of language access. She is the author of a wide array of key resources in the field and the primary developer of the original version of Bridging the Gap, for many years the country’s most widely-offered training for health care interpreters. Her most recent book, Healthcare Interpreting in Small Bites, is being adopted as an ancillary text in many interpreter training programs. Cindy has consulted for a variety of large medical centers and healthcare systems. Always concerned about building grassroots capacity, she has been a mentor to interpreters, trainers and Language Access Coordinators around the U.S. She is a founding member of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC), where she was a long-time Board member and Chair of various committees before her recent election to the Vice President role, a founding member of the Washington State Coalition on Language Access (WASCLA), and a former board member of the Northwest Translators and Interpreters Society (NOTIS) where she currently organizes regular interpreter training workshops through the Medical Special Interest Group. She is known nationally as an engaging speaker, a knowledgeable resource, and an energetic advocate for language access in general.
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