Beyond Words

Health Care Testing Services

ALTA offers a wide range of language testing services for health care organizations.

Bilingual Employee Testing

Bilingual employees provide services directly to the patient/client in the target language. The employees also provide services in English. ALTA offers validated testing for bilingual employees in the following areas:

  • Health Care Provider (physician, nurse)
  • Counselor, such as WIC coordinator
  • Medical Receptionist
  • Telephone information desk
  • Clerical worker

Most health care organizations test in only the target language and focus on oral language skills. Oral language testing is available in all of ALTA's languages. Some organizations also test in English or have a need for reading, writing or translation testing.

Medical Interpreter Testing

ALTA offers validated testing for medical and dental interpreters. These are the positions which help a caregiver and patient/client communicate when their languages are different. Many organizations meet the requirements for testing through oral testing of the interpreter candidates in both languages.

Some organizations seek more in-depth testing to verify interpretation accuracy, knowledge of medical terminology, sight translation and interpreter ethics. ALTA also offers testing for clients needing to meet these requirements.

ALTA also provides testing for employees in health care related fields, such as blood bank workers, massage therapists, providers of veterinary services and even call-center employees in medical insurance organizations.

Testing Methods

ALTA Healthcare Testing can be administered in a number of ways:

  • telephone (oral skills)
  • client administered (reading and writing)
  • online (reading, writing and knowledge such as terminology)
  • on-site.

The testing options are designed to provide you with the maximum flexibility for testing consistent with maintaining appropriate testing protocol.

ALTA Testing is Statistically Valid and Reliable

Testing is valid when the test accurately determines whether a candidate for a job does or does not have the skills to perform the job. The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) identifies three methods for validating tests. ALTA uses one of those methods called Content Validation. ALTA has performed job studies to identify the level of language skills necessary to perform many health care jobs. ALTA then created tests that distinguish whether a testing candidate does or does not have the level of language skills to do the job based on the job requirements.

Reliability is the second issue in language testing. ALTA spends a lot of effort in developing high testing reliability. For example, ALTA's evaluators are all educated, native speakers of the language. ALTA trains evaluators using our extensive bank of recorded evaluations. ALTA does not provide telephone medical interpreter services so we have no work-related testing bias. We also develop appropriate reliability data on our testing as part of our quality assurance processes.

Scheduling and Testing Process

For oral testing ALTA provides a toll-free scheduling number that the administrator or testing candidates use to schedule their tests. Generally, we can schedule common languages like Spanish and English with a one business day notice and less common languages with a two business day notice. A number to call for the testing is provided when scheduling. At the scheduled time the candidate calls the given number and is connected to his/her evaluator. All oral tests are recorded. Oral tests require approximately fifteen minutes. The results of the test are provided to the organization's administrator the business day following the test.

Writing tests can be requested by calling ALTA's scheduling number. The tests are sent to the organization's administrator along with the proctoring instructions. Once the test is completed by the candidates, the administrator sends the completed tests to ALTA. Tests results are provided within one business day of receipt of the completed tests.

Online tests are done through ALTA's online testing site. We provide you a USERNAME and PASSWORD to administer the tests. The test results are available either online or through email immediately.

On-site tests are done on a scheduled basis. Generally, on-site tests are useful only for large numbers of tests because of the travel costs involved.

Take the next step...

ALTA understands the importance of testing and verifying language skills for health care workers. To learn more about our language testing services, contact Danielle Reier at 404.920.3820, or click on the Free Quote link above to reach us via email.