Lifelinks Remote Video Interpreting Services Pricing Bombshell: 29 Languages @$1.50 Per Minute; Availability on TIVO and Xbox 360-like Devices Imminent

Lifelinks Video Interpreting Services (VRI) prices foreign language video interpreting @$1.50 per minute, i.e. the same as telephonic interpreting. Sign Language is available @$1.75 per minute. This is less than half the price charged by other companies. Lifelinks Video Interpreting (www.lifelinks.net) is available 24/7/365 usually, within 60 seconds. The sign language interpreters are all certified, insured and have a background in medical terminology. In addition the service is available without purchase of any dedicated equipment, leases or monthly minimums. Installation normally takes less than an hour. The company is related to, but independent of, Lifelinks VRS.**

(PRWeb) February 9, 2007 -- No longer does a hospital have to wait hours for a live interpreter to arrive at 3 am on Christmas or New Year's eve in a snowstorm. No longer does the patient have to be wheeled through long, dark corridors in the middle of the night to where the video equipment is located, while immodestly dressed and cold. No longer does the hospital have to locate the key to the secure room where the video equipment is stored to protect it against theft. No longer does the hospital have to commit to long term leases of rapidly obsolete, heavy, bulky equipment. No longer does the hospital have to commit to minimum usage requirements. Lifelinks VRI's service is as close as your desk or tv.

"Lifelinks' remote video interpreting service revolutionizes and enhances the ease of access and removes the last remaining obstacles to acceptance and utilization by industry, i.e. cost and speed," says spokesperson Evan David of Lifelinks VRI. The languages available within seconds include: Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Cantonese, Croatian, Farsi, French, French Canadian, French Creole, German, Hindi, Llicano, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalong, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese. Lifelinks VRI also offers most other languages over video from Afghani to Zulu, when provided with slightly more advance notice.

Because no special equipment is required, the service is available ubiquitously in any room where there is broadband. The service is also available on small desktop devices or mounted on a wall to save floor space. With one click the hospital, pharmacy, health care provider, immigration or law enforcement officer, courtroom, school, post office, bank, etc. can access a live interpreter. The advantages of video over telephonic interpreting are obvious: the interpreter can see and be seen thereby observing the body language of the foreign born individual and, conversely, providing a sense of comfort to the latter when he/she sees a person from her/his native country "live" on the monitor. Studies in hospitals utilizing remote interpreting services by JCAHO The Joint Commission of Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (http://www.jointcommission.org/HLC/compiled_list.htm) have shown a reduction in medical error, injury, miscommunication, liability and health care costs. The issues of cultural diversity are well known and of serious current concern to the Committee on Issues of Cultural Diversity of the A.M.A.

Lifelinks VRI's engineers are currently close to making their video interpreting services available over Xbox and TIVO-like set-top devices attached to TV's. This could bring video-interpreting into the TV of every hospital room. It would also facilitate recording the interpreting session for medico-legal ,courtroom and/or educational purposes. Lifelinks Video Interpreting Services interpreters are based on the west coast and the south.

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