Client Stories

Med-High Volume Service Options:
Internal (staff) or Outsource

Client Profile:
  • Four-year university serving 11,000+ undergraduate and graduate students
  • The university employs 1,000+ faculty and employees and manages a disability resource department that drives universal design and facilitates access requests campus-wide.
Client Challenge:
  • Qualification Assurance: One of the university’s main challenges was to verify the appropriate credentials of all interpreters. This verification included an evaluation of:
    1. The interpreter skills and expertise versus the level of courses and wide array of fields of study
    2. Different student language preferences and student satisfaction with access services
  • Multi-service needs: Departments, programs, and events across campus receive demands for ASL interpreters, CART reporters, and post-production captioning to ensure access for students, faculty, visitors, and guests on campus.
  • Volume and Capacity: Each semester, access demands fluctuate along with the number of students who require services. As a result, the university needed to find a way to maintain and grow a pool of providers to meet these fluctuating needs.
  • Staff turnover: As departments and administration evolve on campus, the point of contact to access services needs to adjust.
The PI Customized Solution:
  • PI’s industry experts are trained and experienced professionals who lead a complete evaluation of providers:
    1. Deaf and hearing team members interview and screen all interpreters for language fluency and cultural competency.
    2. We track the knowledge, subject matter expertise, and experience portion of each employee’s profile and vet interpreters to confirm certification.
    3. Our staff is bi-lingual and equipped to communicate directly with Deaf students and faculty. We conduct a check-in inquiry and a survey for language and provider preferences, feedback, and satisfaction each semester.
  • PI is a comprehensive communication provider. We coordinate interpreters, CART (real-time captions), and post-production caption services to support the diversity of needs on campus (for classes, programs, services, events, etc.).
  • Although an individual college’s volume fluctuates from semester to semester, our work is with numerous colleges, hospitals, and other clients. Therefore, our staff can effectively manage hundreds of requests monthly. We are consistently recruiting and hiring new interpreters and thus can quickly adapt to university volume (both small and large).
Results:
  • Our client’s Disability Resource administration coordination time was cut and capitalized to focus on other in-house accommodations.
  • Our client’s communication, scheduling, billing, hiring, and management protocol remained consistent.

Request a Consultation

Email:

Phone:

  • 508-699-1477 (voice); answering service supports non-business hours sending messages to on call staff
  • 508-809-4894 (videophone) for ASL users