The use of an interpreter is great for patient education, assessments, giving meds, discharge instruction, and so on. If you have a language barrier with a patient and or family member, it is essential that an interpreter is used. At the hospital where I work, they have really cut back on actual interpreters, especially at night, and have enforced the use of an interpreter phone. This can be a challenge compared to a live person because patients are hard of hearing or there are more people in the room besides just the one person on the phone. It also feels so non personal. My community of patients is very culturally diverse with English being much underused. I feel like it is a very big disservice to our community of patients to lose interpreter people and use phones. The hospital should cut the budget elsewhere!