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When you're in the hospital, you take for granted being able to stay in touch with friends and family outside. Deaf patients, however, may find themselves cut off from their social networks because they can't use the telephone. Now Chicago’s Mount Sinai Hospital is making life easier for deaf and hard-of-hearing patients with the installation of a videophone booth in its lobby. The videophone inside the booth connects patients and visitors to American Sign Language interpreters who facilitate conversations for them by way of Sorenson Video Relay Service.
The videophone is connected to a television and high-speed Internet. Callers enter the phone number of the hearing individual they are calling. Through Sorenson’s relay service, an ASL interpreter appears on the screen, connects the individuals, and relays the conversation between them. The hearing party receiving the call uses a standard phone line.
This service, which is free to users and supported by the Universal Service Fund, allows ASL signers to express themselves in their native language. Patients and visitors can communicate medical information and patient-condition reports to hearing family, friends, and co-workers who are off site. For the first time, deaf patients have a reliable way to place their own phone calls while they are at the hospital.
Alan Channing, president and CEO of Mount Sinai Health System, says the hospital treats about 1,300 patients who are deaf or hard of hearing -- more than any other hospital in Chicago -- largely because of the reputation of its Deaf Access Program. Channing says, "We believe it is important that people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing who are treated by Mount Sinai and who live in our community have the ability to communicate with each other and with the hearing world privately and in the best way possible.”
When you're in the hospital, you take for granted being able to stay in touch with friends and family outside. Deaf patients, however, may find themselves cut off from their social networks because they can't use the telephone. Now Chicago’s Mount Sinai Hospital is making life easier for deaf and hard-of-hearing patients with the installation of a videophone booth in its lobby. The videophone inside the booth connects patients and visitors to American Sign Language interpreters who facilitate conversations for them by way of Sorenson Video Relay Service.
The videophone is connected to a television and high-speed Internet. Callers enter the phone number of the hearing individual they are calling. Through Sorenson’s relay service, an ASL interpreter appears on the screen, connects the individuals, and relays the conversation between them. The hearing party receiving the call uses a standard phone line.
This service, which is free to users and supported by the Universal Service Fund, allows ASL signers to express themselves in their native language. Patients and visitors can communicate medical information and patient-condition reports to hearing family, friends, and co-workers who are off site. For the first time, deaf patients have a reliable way to place their own phone calls while they are at the hospital.
Alan Channing, president and CEO of Mount Sinai Health System, says the hospital treats about 1,300 patients who are deaf or hard of hearing -- more than any other hospital in Chicago -- largely because of the reputation of its Deaf Access Program. Channing says, "We believe it is important that people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing who are treated by Mount Sinai and who live in our community have the ability to communicate with each other and with the hearing world privately and in the best way possible.”