Enhancing Justice award by NACM recognizes Maryland AOC for implementing ScheduleInterpreter®
July 28, 2021 - Reading time: 4 minutes
Access to Justice, Maryland Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) receives National Association for Court Management (NACM) Award for Enhancing Justice. The MD AOC receives the award as a recognition of TRANSITIONING A STATEWIDE COURT SYSTEM TO USE INTEGRATED INTERPRETER MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE.
Congratulations to Pamela Ortiz, Esq., Director Access to Justice and Ksenia Boitsova, Court Interpreter Program Administrator and the entire team of AOC who work hard and continue to ensure equal access to justice for deaf and hard of hearing, and non-English speaking population of the state of Maryland.
In 2018 ScheduleInterpreter.com, Inc. and Maryland AOC embarked on a long term journey to transition the state of Maryland judicial system to the most secure and technologically advanced interpreters and interpreting management platform. ScheduleInterpreter.com, Inc. committed nearly 2 years of the development resources, to improve and automate the processes the state AOC had previously established. With a long checklist of tasks, ScheduleInterpreter.com, Inc. used its expertise in building customer-focused solutions and transformed ScheduleInterpreter® to enable the state of Maryland manage large scale interpretation services using unified solution with minimal resources.
In addition to using ScheduleInterpreter® as a management platform, the court administration was the first to incorporate ScheduleInterpreter® Engage and ScheduleInterpreter® Docs into its workflow. This helped to further centralize project management, reduce troubleshooting time, and establish single standard for creating, maintaining and distributing training materials and operational documentation.
Several highly complicated and previously manual processes were automated and turned into state of the art tools. This has become the exemplary use of technology in the modern court management environment. ScheduleInterpreter.com, Inc. proposed and implemented paperless, fully digitized invoicing process. Court interpreters now guided through the billing process and produce AOC approved digital invoice. Digital invoice can be electronically validated by the AOC staff and transferred to the court financial department, baring all necessary electronic signatures and validation notes.
The AOC moved forward and became the first state court system to implement interactive online directory of the court authorized interpreters who agreed to share their information with other state agencies and public. Listing and maintenance are fully automated within ScheduleInterpreter®, further reducing the workload of AOC staff and keeping the directory current.
Preliminary review shows great dynamics in cost reduction. With more precise management, year over year cost of cancelled assignments fell by 24%. At the same time travel expenses fell by 29%. The internal survey conducted after more than a year of using ScheduleInterpreter® demonstrates overwhelming success in acceptance of the solution and the improvements the platform brought to the court administration.
94% agreed or strongly agreed that ScheduleInterpreter® improved the court’s ability to communicate with interpreters. 95% agreed or strongly agreed the platform had improved the invoicing process. Finally, 96% agreed or strongly agreed that ScheduleInterpreter® has made it easier to handle emergency interpreter requests.
The work continues with implementation of the first in the country fully automated court interpreters compliance framework, based on industry-proven COMPLIANCE CENTER, introduced by ScheduleInterpreter® in 2011.
Success of the state of Maryland paves the road for simplified implementation of ScheduleInterpreter® in other court systems. As pointed out by Ms. Ortiz:
The automation of key administrative functions in any state court is a significant undertaking. It requires not only the development of, or purchase and adoption of, a tool, but requires skilled staff to work with the contractor to ensure the product meets the state’s needs. It requires continual feedback from stakeholders and users of the product, a commitment to support the program for the long-term, and a meaningful effort to support court staff and others as they adjust to the new technology. There will always be short-term challenges required in exchange for long-term gains.
With questions about implementing ScheduleInterpreter®, the cloud-based interpreters and interpreting services management platform visit our website at www.scheduleinterpreter.com, call us at 707.400.0503 or e-mail at products[at]scheduleinterpreter.com