To speed up your transfer into AT&T’s TAP program and receive a lower monthly rate, please click on the following link then print and complete the form and take it to the AT&T store when you transfer your service.

iPhone Text Accessibility Plan Form (PDF)

Please be sure to go to one of the authorized AT&T stores listed in the following document:

Authorized AT&T retail stores in Kentucky

The following letter and instructions should have been sent to you in the mail. In case you have not received it and/or for your convenience, you may download it here:

TAP letter and instructions

Transcript…

Hello. My name is Pam Mullaney. I am the director of membership services for the Kentucky Hospital Association (KHA). In Kentucky there are 130 hospitals and KHA represents every hospital in Frankfort and Washington. Our primary goal is to advocate for hospitals, but in addition, we provide many educational services, emergency preparedeness services, and patient safety services to our members.

One of the committees that I work on for KHA is called Effective Communications in Hospitals. This committee started in November 2005,and which was a collaborative between the American Hospital Association and the Office of Civil Rights. Together we wanted to address helping hospitals better communicate with people who don’t speak English as a first language. They’re also known as limited English proficient or LEP. So when we started, LEP was the focus of this, but soon that started to branch into the deaf and hard of hearing, those who are blind or who have low level vision, and now we’re also including the levels of health literacy.

What I’d like to share with youtoday at some of my work for the deaf and hard of hearing. About a year ago we did an RFPfor Video Remote Interpreting services. We wanted to be able to help hospitals bettercommunicate with the deaf in event of an emergency. We know that in Kentucky we do nothave enough full-time medically trained American Sign Language interpreters. So, in many cases, especially in the rural parts of the state, if a deaf person presents to the emergency room and we cannot get a medically trained American Sing Language intepreter face to face, then we’d like to be able to resort to technology.

We did an RFP about a year ago. We had seven companies who are experts in Video Remote Interpreting (VRI)technology, and we compared their services on everything from reliability,to ease of use for our medical professionals, to the expertise and the talent of the American Sign Languageinterpreters. Then we narrowed it down and we came up with what we think was the best provider for hospitals in Kentucky. We were also able to get hospitals in Kentucky a verygood rate per minute for using VRI technology. We’ve worked with a company called LifeLinks, and if you ever want any more information about LifeLinks and information that they provide and the technology they provide, I’d be happy to take those questions.

Let’s see here…some of the other things you wanted me to talk about….Who to contact at the hospital if you need this type of service. We want all of our deaf patient population to be their own advocate, as well as also to depend on our hospitals to advocate for their interests. Because, again, our mission for hospitals is to promote health, well-being, access to care. So most hospitals do have a patient advocate or a consumer advocate that a patient could rely on in a situation where they need to have access to language. So that will be one person you can speak with. Pastoral care is often another great resource. Administration, your chief nursing officer, the person is responsible for clinical care. Those are all the different professional groups with a hospital setting who is there to help support you when you need care.

The Kentucky Hospital Association would like to thank theKentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing for working with us in this very joint collaborative. Again, we represent all 130 hospitals in the state and this committee, I should share with you, has a 32-member make up. Sixteen hospitals in the state represent the committee. In addition, we also depend on the expertise of the Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. They are very active members with our group. We also have the Office for the Blind this that shares with us their expertise; the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. We have two health education centers around the statethat also help us with this, as well as a federally qualified health center.

So, again, we want to thank you for your support. Thank you for helping us share with you some of the great work that we’re doing throughout the Commonwealth and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Welcome to KCDHH’s “Community Forum”!

This is a new platform we’d like to use to bring up and discuss various issues that affect the deaf and hard of hearing community. Such issues would include legislation, education, equal access, technology, programs and services, and more; all of which would impact the deaf and hard of hearing community in some way. This platform is also an avenue for you, the deaf and hard of hearing community, to voice your concerns and offer your input and feedback. This is a way for you to contribute and help shape the future of deaf and hard of hearing Kentuckians and we hope you will take advantage of this wonderful opportunity.

On a monthly basis, we will produce a signed and captioned video which will bring forth a specific topic. Depending on the topic, we will interview someone who is knowledgeable about and/or is directly involved with the topic at hand.  This way we will be able to offer you firsthand information surrounding the topic. For example, we will be interviewing someone from the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) in order to bring up a topic regarding deaf and hard of hearing education issues. Another example, we will interview a hard of hearing representative from the Telecommunications giant, AT&T, to discuss available and upcoming telecommunications technology for deaf and hard of hearing people.

Once we’ve produced a video, we will post it here for everyone to view. Then if you have any questions, concerns, input, feedback, or if you just want more information, you may post a typed message here. You may pose your questions directly to the interviewee and they will come back and answer, as best as they can, in a timely manner.

You may also post suggestions for future topics. Perhaps you feel a certain important  issue has not been given enough attention, you can bring it to everyone’s attention here and maybe a discussion will ensue. If your issues warrant further discussions, we may contact and invite relevant authorities to come in for an interview. Maybe then, the right people will be made aware of the issues which you feel need more attention.

Remember, this is your place to discuss deaf and hard of hearing issues, not only with fellow deaf and hard of hearing Kentuckians, but also with people who have influence over the various issues that deaf and hard of hearing Kentuckians face.