1. George Herrera Vice President, Donor Services, MTF 2017 AMAT Meeting
The Language of Tissue Donation Approaches for Tissue Donation in Different Languages
George Herrera
Vice President, Donor Services, MTF
2017 AMAT Meeting

2. Tissues Recovered and Processed by MTF
Musculoskeletal Tissues
Dermal Tissue
Birth Tissues

3. MTF Locations 2 buildings StatLine – Denver, CO
3 buildings on 2 campuses

4. Growth Since Inception
Over 7.5 Million Grafts Distributed

5. 1987 – 2017: 30 Year Historical Statistics
115,000+ Tissue Donors
7.5+ Million Allografts
6.0+ Million Patients
$50M+ Research Grants Provided

6. International Activities
MTF Distributes tissue grafts in 52+ countries
Australia
Mexico
Canada
Columbia
United Kingdom

7. MTF Tissue Services
Recover deceased donors and birth tissue donors in:
Albany, NY (Center for Donation and Transplant)
Syracuse, NY
Rochester, NY
New Jersey (birth tissue)

8. MTF Tissue Services Donor Coordination Team Statline
Virtual communications center secondary screening, telephone authorization and DRAI
Nebraska Organ Recovery Services
Legacy of Life Hawaii
Statline
Initial triage
Phone switch
Donor Information System (DonorTrac Plus)

9. Language and Multi-Cultural Facets of Approaching for Tissue Donation
Multi-cultural issues
Staffing
Volume (of donor referrals)

10. There is very little data!
This presentation will raise
more questions than conclusions.

11. Staffing a Communications Center
Referral volume (peaks and valleys)
Type and length of call
Hold times
Length of shifts (8 hours vs. 12 hours)
Qualifications
Do they have what it takes? Passion, compassion, empathy, stamina (physical and emotional)
Should you strive to recruited and hire multi-lingual staff?

12. Brief Survey Sent survey to 29 MTF recovery partners
16 of 29 recovery partners responded
104.1 Million population
858,698 deaths referred
199 FTEs to approach families about tissue donation
9 multilingual staff (8 – Spanish and 1 - Hindi)
2 OPOs used other staff either initially or when possible (ORCs, Family Services Coordinator, hospital staff)

13. Translation Services 10 – Language Line 1 – Language Link (CTS)
1 – LionBridge
1 – TransPerfect
1 – Pacific Interpreters
1 – Quantum Communications

14. None tracked the authorization rates for tissue donors approached in a different language.

15. MTF Tissue Services data
From January 2017 to July 2018:
361 approaches used Language Line
Approaches were made in 21 different languages
Spanish – 247 (68%)
Japanese* – 20 (5.5%)
Korean* – 15 (4.1%)
Mandarin* – 12 (3.3%)
Somali – 12 (3.3%)

16. Approach Languages FRENCH MARSHALLESE ARABIC CANTONESE* VIETNAMESE*
BURMESE
BOSNIAN
JAPANESE*
PORTUGUESE
VISAYAN*
RUSSIAN
KAREN*
TAGALOG*
KINYARWANDA
ILOCANO*
ROHINGYA*

17. DSA Population Tissue Services NY Nebraska Hawaii
Hispanic or Latino 6.0% (19% with NYC)
Asian % (8.9% with NYC)
Nebraska
Hispanic or Latino 10.7%
Asian %
Hawaii
Hispanic or Latino 10.4%
Asian %

18. 361 approaches in a non-English language represents 11
361 approaches in a non-English language represents 11.7% of all MTF Tissue Services approaches

19. 247 approaches in Spanish represents 8% of all MTF Tissue Services approaches

20. 85 approaches in an Asian language represents ~3% of all MTF Tissue Services approaches

21. Important points and questions
Language/translation services are critical because you can’t staff for all of the possible languages in your DSA.
Language is one factor in multi-culturalism
What sort of donation training are language/translation services provided?
On translated calls, how well are empathy, non-verbal queues and cultural considerations addressed?

22. Important points and questions
Should staff be certified to translate?
How well do we capture language and multi-cultural data points in referral and donor data?
What if we could aggregate the data from all of the translation services?