Cultivating Certification - Part II

Clarence "Buck" Chaffee
Founding Principal/CEO
Atvantus, LLC

In last month’s article for the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI), I discussed the "roots of certification" and why it is so important to base certification decisions on an accurate, current definition of the profession. I also discussed why this definition needs to be created through an unbiased, scientific study.

This month’s article explains exactly how CCHI is going to go about creating a definition for healthcare interpreters and why we are confident that this approach will be effective when previous attempts at defining the profession have not been widely accepted.

Selecting the Job/Task Analysis Panel of Experts

The process of identifying the JTA panel of experts (the people who will actually create CCHI’s Job/Task analysis survey) begins somewhat like an old B-movie in which, when little Timmy goes missing, the sheriff calls out to "Organize a search party!" I like this analogy because the process of creating a defensible certification program is in fact a search for the truth about what a profession really is and really does that impacts others. CCHI’s "search party" is a group of 11 healthcare interpreting professionals who have been chosen to lead this discovery process. Unlike B-movies (and unfortunately some other credentialing groups), however, our call for truth seekers is not followed by "round up the usual suspects." Rather, CCHI undertook a careful process to identify a panel that provides a balanced representation of all aspects of the profession.

What are the steps in achieving this balanced representation of the field?

First, you define the important characteristics. Second you estimate how the profession is represented by these characteristics. Third, you select a panel that represents these characteristics.

To do so, CCHI’s Certification Commission created a matrix of characteristics and percentage weightings of the profession including:

• Individual demographics: Gender, Age, Race, Education
• Career Demographics: Years of Experience, Career Path, Language Acquisition, Job Title
• Practice Demographics: Employer Type, Community Density, Geographic Location, Practice Setting, Language

The commission identified appropriate groupings within each characteristic (i.e., Gender = Male or Female, etc.) and then searched for existing data (e.g., census data, studies, reports and other sources for information) to create an estimate of the actual percentage of the profession represented by each characteristic. For the example above, we looked at several sources of data to develop an estimate the percentages of males and females in the industry. This became our goal for the gender makeup of the committee.

Volunteers were then sought to serve on the JTA panel so that the characteristics of the panel and the characteristics of the profession matched as closely as possible. We literally summed the characteristics of the panel members and compared it category by category to the industry estimates. And we kept substituting potential members until the committee demographics matched the industry demographics as closely as possible.

It is also important to realize that this means that the panel is not comprised solely of mainstream, highly experienced practitioners and educators. It includes practitioners from non-traditional settings, languages of lesser diffusion and interpreters who are relatively new to the profession.

We can now say with certainly that this panel represents the individual, geographic and work demographics of the industry – and we can prove it!

In addition, to guard against bias, the JTA members were disqualified if they had a conflict of interest in the outcome of the process or were members of the CCHI. Finally, all members were required to sign a Conflict of Interest agreement affirming their understanding of CCHI’s policies.

The Process Begins

This diverse panel of experts met each other for the first time in mid-December. They spent two intensive days following a structured process that has been carefully designed to facilitate the initial draft of the definition of the job of the healthcare interpreter.

Tune in next month to learn what comes out of the JTA panel meeting and when and how you will be able to participate in the process. We will also lay out exactly how the JTA fits into the other parts of the process and support the development of a complete and credible certification program.

Why This Study Will Succeed

In closing, I want to go back to what I said in the first paragraph and explain why we are confident that this process will succeed when other attempts at defining a profession have not. Clearly using a widely accepted, proven process and selecting committee members through a structured approach that ensures representation, eliminates conflicts of interest and minimizes bias all contribute to the ultimate success of the study. These steps alone significantly separate this study from previous attempts.

In addition, we have carefully and specifically separated individual and organizational ambitions for the future of the profession from the task of seeking the truth about what the profession is today. Whatever you want to call this - separation of church and state; or shielding science from politics – the point is that we have given the JTA panel a clear and concise task.

And finally, we will also seek the input of the entire profession as the work of the JTA panel will be reviewed and edited by a group of 40 to 50 external practitioners and then validated by a broad survey of the entire profession.

With a proven process, a truly representative panel with a clear assignment and validation from the profession itself, there is no way that this study can fail.

Stay tuned for the next article

There is much more to come about how the CCHI certification will be built and about some very interesting and innovative research being done to support education and training of healthcare interpreters as well. Please check back for monthly updates.