Translation and Interpretation PWS.pdf

Performance Work Statement (PWS)

Translation and Interpretation Services

1. Description of Service: William Beaumont Army Medical Center (WBAMC) and its assigned Community Based Outpatient Clinics within its geographic location has a requirement for telephone language interpreter and document translation service. The language translation services required herein are in support of WBAMC and Community Based Outpatient Clinics in direct translation of dialog occurring between patients, patient’s family, and staff in a conversational language setting. Conversations translated may include technical/medical terminology and privacy/protected information.

1.1. Background: The purpose of the project is to comply with The Joint Commission (TJC) standards to implement and comply with Executive Order 13166, Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) and ensure that WBAMC has an established policy regarding the use of language interpreters to assist patients and families in the normal delivery of medical care when the use of a common language is not possible.

1.2. Objectives: The vendor shall provide telephone language interpretation; document translation (transcribe/translate); rapid toll-free access to a wide range of language interpreters

24-hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The services shall support WBAMC and assigned Community Based Outpatient Clinics by providing certified interpreters to assist in the communication process between WBAMC Staff, Veteran patients, beneficiaries, and other parties.

1.2.1. The vendor should provide detailed electronic (OB-10) and hard copy detailed billing reports to the government appointed Point of Contact (POC) via email.

1.2.2. The vendor should have the ability via a unique identifier to distinguish the date, time, duration, language, and at which location/site interpreter services were used.

1.3. Scope: The vendor shall provide all required personnel, inclusive of an interpreter manager to provide day to day management, to accomplish the following services during the specified periods of WBAMC performance and maintain the established performance standards stated herein.

1.3.1. The vendor shall provide all equipment, supplies, tools, materials, supervision, other items, and non-personal services necessary to engage in translating of written material and interpreting speech from one language to another.

1.3.2. Material transcribed and translated may include technical/medical terminology and/or patient visitor, employee privacy/protected information.

1.4. Tasks or Requirements: The vendor shall provide access to interpreters that are fluent in language and document translation in at least 50 of the most common languages.

1.4.1. The twelve mandatory languages are: Spanish, Japanese, French, Mandarin, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, German, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and Tagalog. The incumbent vendor will be required to present a complete listing of language interpretations that they are able to support upon contract award.

1.4.2. The vendor shall provide the necessary personnel, materials, equipment and facilities to support the aforementioned work requirements.

1.4.3. The vendor should have a Quality Specialist and some form of monitoring program to monitor calls for quality purposes and document response times and dropped call rates.

1.4.4. The vendor shall monitor, perform production control, review work product and other source documents for completeness. The vendor shall conduct translation, validation checks and error correction of conversation as they occur during the course of the overall process and not during a post timeframe.

1.5. Hours of Performance: The vendor shall be responsible for delivering all required language interpretation services when requested by staff working in WBAMC or its assigned Community

Based Outpatient Clinics.

1.5.1. Telephonic: Vendor needs to ensure that telephonic interpreters are available 24-hours a day, 7- days a week, 365 days a year.

1.5.2. Provide a toll-free number.

1.5.3. Documentation translation request(s) will be provided to the WBAMC requestor(s) no later than 48 hours after the agreed upon document translation cost estimate by the vendor and the appointed WBAMC-Patient Administration Division (PAD) Point of Contact.

1.6. Workload: Vendor must be able to respond to workload variability. The estimated workload average is approximately (968) interpretation minutes per month but subject to increase. The government will only pay for the amount of “interpretation minutes” provided. The Point of

Contact (POC) will communicate on a monthly basis, or on as needed basis, with the vendor to identify fluctuation(s) on interpretation workload. Documentation Translation - upon request incumbent vendor shall translate approximately (16,000 words) translation requests over a normal (12) month average and/or fiscal year. Documents will be submitted by the WBAMC

PAD-Point of Contact (POC) requesting an estimated document translation cost prior to commencing the finalized document translation request.

1.7. Personnel: Vendor shall provide a workforce with the skills, knowledge, and training to satisfactorily perform the services required by the contractor. Vendor employees shall be qualified interpreters having extensive knowledge of medical terminology and specialized vocabulary peculiar to a wide variety of subjects including, but not limited to medicine, surgery, psychiatry, and pharmaceutical. All contracted personnel requiring a network account must have the appropriate Information Assurance (IA) – Baseline Training certification and Computing

Environment (CE) as required in accordance with Army Regulation 25-2.

1.8. Qualifications: The vendor shall provide qualified, professional experienced interpreters who possess a high level of interpretation skills and proficiency in both the English language and the non-English speaker’s language in order to interpret the speaker’s meaning completely and accurately. Specifically, interpreters employed by the vendor must be:

1.8.1. United States citizens or lawfully admitted into the United States for permanent residence.

Incumbent vendor may request from the Government a waiver of this requirement on a case-by-case basis for languages for which qualified interpreter who is either United States Citizens or lawful permanent resident cannot be located.

1.8.2. Language interpreters should either be certified in the language they are providing

WBAMC service for or have one (1) year of experience interpreting the language that they are providing service for.

1.8.3. Contractor personnel must understand a wide variety of pronunciations and enunciations originating from different ethnic and geographical backgrounds. Contractor personnel shall have complete knowledge of medical terminology pronunciation and enunciations originating from different ethnic and geographical backgrounds.

1.9. Specific Tasks or Assignments: No offshore interpretation. The contracted services shall be performed within the United States of America. Contractor will maintain a continuous Quality

Assurance Program for this contract.

1.9.1. Line Data Report/Invoice. The Vendor shall submit a monthly report/invoice showing the total number of minutes interpreted and/or the document(s) translated via Wide Area Workflow.

Incumbent contractor shall fax, email, or mail the original report/invoice to the Point of Contact

(POC) by the third working day of the month following the month in which the reported work was accomplished. Copies of these reports/invoices will be maintained for the life of the contract by the contractor and POC.

1.9.2. Vendor is responsible for use of correct grammar/punctuation, ensuring context of translated documents/material remain intact, and completed reports are submitted in a final Word

Document (Arial-12 font) and/or PDF format.

1.9.3. Completed work will be reviewed by the assigned POC and/or assigned WBAMC PAD

Project Manager for compliance with specification requirements. Deficiencies are subject to the

Inspection of Services Clause. If the government elects to have the contractor re-perform the

“document translation” service, it shall be accomplished within a reasonable turn-around time(s) as put forth by the government POC and/or PAD Project Manager.

1.10. Security: The vendor will provide certified interpreters that will adhere to patient privacy and HIPAA standards.

1.10.1. Incumbent vendor will ensure appropriate background investigation at the NACI level is conducted for the interpreter staff servicing the contract.

1.11. Place of Performance: Will be located at William Beaumont Army Medical Center, Fort

Bliss, TX 79918. The place of language interpretation performance will typically be over the telephone or at any of the outlying Community Based Outpatient Clinic’s that WBAMC has identified in this contract.

1.12. Conflict of Interest: The incumbent vendor shall not employ any person, either military or civilian, who is currently an employee of the United State Government, if they employment of that person has the potential of creating a conflict of interest, unless such person(s) received prior approval in accordance with applicable government regulations.

1.13. The Contractor will comply with municipal, State, and Federal laws, ordinances, rules, and regulations applicable to the business carried on under this contract.

1.14. The Joint Commission (TJC): The incumbent vendor is expected to comply with all timeline statutes and requirements of The Joint Commission in relation to language interpretation and translated documentation workload requirements.

1.15. Complaints. Complaints will be validated by the Contracting Officer’s Representative and be reported in writing to the Contracting Officer, Government designee and to the Contractor for action, if it constitutes a failure to perform, as determined by the Government. The contract provider shall have no more than two substantiated complaints per 12-month period.

1.16. Quality Assurance: The government will monitor the Contractor's performance under this contract utilizing internal quality assurance procedures and by verifying finalized reports, invoices and translated documents that have been submitted to the assigned contract government

POC. This is to be performed by the POC.