Executive Director Interpreter Services

Description

Calling All Esteemed Leaders!

This role offers a unique opportunity to lead a systemwide transformation that directly advances health equity, patient safety, and operational excellence. The leader in this role will shape how Providence delivers equitable, culturally responsive care to patients who are Limited English Proficient (LEP), deaf, or hard of hearing—at enterprise scale.

The Universal Language Access Plan (ULAP) initiative supports Providence’s mission to deliver safe, timely, and equitable care for all patients. This role plays a critical leadership function in operationalizing a standardized, enterprise Language Access program—replacing a fragmented model of more than 50 vendors and inconsistent workflows with a unified, governed, and measurable operating framework.

The position contributes to systemwide improvements in patient safety, care experience, and caregiver workflow efficiency by supporting the design, implementation, and oversight of enterprise language access solutions. Responsibilities span strategy, governance, operations, technology, vendor management, and financial stewardship.

This role ensures Providence delivers equitable, compliant, and culturally responsive care while advancing enterprise transformation and operational excellence across hospitals, clinics, and health plans. This position requires some travel, but is primarily remote with options for being based out of our key, system locations:
Lubbock, Irvine, Portland, Spokane, Santa Rosa or Renton.

• Enterprise Strategy, Governance & System Leadership
  • Set the enterprise vision, strategy, and governance model for Language Access across the health system, ensuring alignment with Providence’s Mission, system priorities, and long‑range planning.
  • Lead development of the enterprise Language Access operating model, including policies, standards, workflows, performance expectations, and accountability structures.
  • Strengthen patient safety by defining standards and workflows that reduce communication‑related risk and improve accuracy, documentation, and clinical decision‑making.
  • Establish enterprise performance monitoring systems and lead continuous improvement efforts to remove friction in caregiver workflows and patient experience.
  • Serve as the primary executive leader for enterprise Language Access councils, governance bodies, and cross‑functional work groups.
  • Ensure alignment with Title VI, ADA/Section 504, CLAS Standards, Joint Commission requirements, and state‑level regulations.
• Team Leadership & Capability Building
  • Provide full leadership accountability for modality managers, including hiring, coaching, performance management, and development.
  • Establish competency models, quality expectations, and certification standards for interpreters and translators.
  • Oversee enterprise strategy for interpreter certification and credentialing in partnership with HR, Compliance, Clinical Education, and Learning & Development.
  • Model cultural fluency and inclusive leadership reflective of Providence’s diverse communities, including high‑volume Spanish‑speaking populations.
• Change Leadership, Training & Adoption
  • Lead enterprise change strategy to ensure consistent adoption of Language Access standards, tools, and workflows.
  • Partner with HR, Learning & Development, Clinical Education, and ministry leadership to define training requirements, communications, and readiness plans.
  • Improve caregiver experience by reducing access barriers, standardizing tools, and simplifying workflows.
  • Oversee systemwide rollout of platforms, governance models, service standards, and quality frameworks.
  • Serve as executive sponsor for Language Access Advisors and Champions across ministries.
• Modality Strategy, Standards & System Oversight
  • Spoken Language Services
    • Set systemwide strategy for onsite, video, and telephonic interpreting.
    • Establish enterprise service standards, quality benchmarks, and performance expectations.
    • Ensure operations support compliance, patient safety, and reliable caregiver workflows.
  • ASL & Deaf / Hard‑of‑Hearing (DHH) Services
    • Provide systemwide leadership ensuring ADA/504 compliance and best‑in‑class ASL/DHH services.
    • Def…