Demonstration Sites

To break down communication barriers between health care providers and Spanish speaking patients, Hablamos Juntos selected ten existing health care organizations as “demonstration sites.” These organizations – which range from major hospital systems and health plans to grassroots community organizations – will work with Hablamos Juntos to design and test innovative approaches that improve health care services for Latino patients. Demonstration sites will explore the feasibility and affordability of expanding interpreter services, providing more health information in Spanish, and using effective signs to guide patients through the facility. Ideas tested and implemented successfully will be shared with other health care organizations throughout the country.

The process of selecting the demonstration sites lasted nearly a year. After the initial Call for Proposals, Hablamos Juntos received nearly 180 Letters of Intent by the February 1, 2002 deadline. Three weeks later, twenty-three invitations were sent to applicants across the nation requesting full proposals to become one of the ten Hablamos Juntos demonstration sites. The National Advisory Committee (NAC) met in May 2002, and, after hours of painstaking review, discussion, and praise for each submitted proposal, fifteen sites were recommended for site visits. Following the site visits, the NAC met again in August 2002 to review the results and recommended ten applicants for planning grant awards of $150,000 each.