Beyond Bids: Using the Language Access RFP Process for Supply Chain and Patient Care Excellence

Procurement and contracting is often seen as transactional, yet RFPs are the most powerful tools available to healthcare systems leadership to shape vendor practices and ensure professional standards in over the phone, video, and onsite interpreting, as well as in outsourced translations. Supply chain teams play a key role in the RFP process, including decisions related to language services. Well-crafted language services RFPs help achieve supply chain excellence, reduce risks, increase quality, and enhance patient experience. This session will discuss how healthcare leaders can craft RFPs to raise interpreter standards and improve care by enforcing quality metrics and appropriate KPIs, auditing vendor performance, and using the RFP cycle to drive industry-wide change.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Draft RFP language that set the right expectations and advances professionalization and patient safety.
• Structure scoring rubrics to favor quality and certification over cost alone.
• Build post-award oversight plans that enforce standards and foster improvement.

SPEAKERS

Manuel Higginbotham
Director of Language Access
MD Anderson Cancer Center

Tatiana Cestari
Director of Language Access Advocacy
Martti