Healthcare organizations across the U.S. face mounting pressure to improve quality, ensure compliance, and reduce disparities in care. Yet one operational area remains under-measured and under-resourced: language access in clinical encounters.
Clear communication is foundational to safe, equitable care. Patients who cannot reliably communicate with clinicians face higher risks, longer visits, and poorer outcomes. Still, many healthcare systems lack meaningful benchmarks for how interpreting services perform, how technology is deployed, or how their programs compare to peers.
Recent industry data underscores the gap. The Healthcare Interpreting Report 2025 found that only 23 percent of organizations track outcomes for patients with limited English proficiency as a separate cohort. At the same time, 44 percent cite cost as a primary barrier to meeting interpreting needs. Demand continues to grow, with 92 percent of healthcare leaders expecting interpreter volume to increase, and more than half reporting comfort using AI for non-clinical tasks.
Adoption is accelerating. Measurement is not.
A rapidly evolving landscape
Language access programs now extend far beyond in-person interpretation. Healthcare organizations are navigating decisions about:
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In-person, video, and phone interpreting modalities
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Appropriate use cases for AI interpreting
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Escalation from AI to human interpreters
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Device strategies at the point of care
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Integration with the EHR and clinical workflows
Interpreting services increasingly intersect with quality performance, patient experience, risk adjustment, and compliance oversight. They also intersect with digital health strategy and IT governance.
Building a shared benchmark
To help address this gap, we are launching the 2026 State of Interpreting Technology Report, a benchmarking study focused on healthcare interpreting services.
The research will examine:
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Modality distribution across care settings
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Adoption patterns for AI and hybrid models
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EHR integration and workflow alignment
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Device utilization at the point of care
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Performance and cost metrics
The objective is straightforward: provide healthcare leaders with actionable, comparative data to inform strategy, budgeting, and operational planning.
Your perspective matters
We invite healthcare professionals who use, manage, or lead interpreting or language access programs to participate. This includes language access managers, clinical operations leaders, compliance teams, IT stakeholders, and health plan administrators.
The survey takes approximately five minutes to complete. Responses are confidential. Participants will receive early access to benchmarking insights and a summary of key trends.
As interpreting services become more integrated with AI-enabled tools and digital health infrastructure, data should guide the path forward.
Participate in the survey and help establish the first shared benchmark for interpreting technology in healthcare.