DALLAS – The Parkland Health and Hospital System is deploying new phones in an effort to break down language barriers.

At least 77 languages have been spoken by patients seeking medical services from the 990-bed, Dallas-based hospital so far this year, said Deborah Moore, director of patient relations for Parkland Health. In addition, the hospital has experienced a 40 percent increase in demand for interpretation services over the past two years.

With that in mind, the hospital will be using a new three-way phone that facilitates interpretive services to patients. Officials plan to put a Language Line Phone in every patient room at the hospital, rolling out approximately 1,000 new phones across the campus. The phones were developed by Language Lines Services, a Monterey, Calif.-based language interpretation company.

"Over-the-phone interpretation is a critical link in the communication chain,” said Moore. “By making the dual-handset phones readily accessible, we can better protect patient safety and improve care while containing cost."

Hospital officials said the phones will facilitate three-way communications between medical providers, patients with limited command of the English language and medical interpreters in more than 175 languages.

“Parkland has long been an industry leader in providing language access to its limited English speaking patients," said Louis Provenzano, president and COO of Language Line Services. The company has worked with Parkland for many years, he said.

Through a poll conducted at the hospital, patients identified the top 10 languages that the hospital should provide interpreters for. They are Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Arabic, Amharic, Burmese, Swahili, Mandarin, Farsi and Russian.