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Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

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Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#51

Post by nojito »

atdrummond wrote: post #40

I and some others in the healthcare/healthcare tech spaces volunteered to create a discharge templating system for many of the top non-English and non-Spanish languages used in the United States - specifically the top languages in the Northwest to start. Our offering utilized data from, and would have been integrated with, an EMR whose name means "particularly impressive" even if their response was anything but. Afte…

Doubt your company is large enough to partner with them.

The issue with discharge templating is that EVERY single client under that company gets customized support from them until you are able to guarantee providing that level of custom support you don't have a shot in partnering with them.

There's a reason why Caregility is the solution instead.

https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/mount-sinai-eases-tran...

Touching the templates themselves is never going to scale.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#52

Post by atdrummond »

pythko wrote: post #49
atdrummond wrote: post #40

I and some others in the healthcare/healthcare tech spaces volunteered to create a discharge templating system for many of the top non-English and non-Spanish languages used in the United States - specifically the top languages in the Northwest to start. Our offering utilized data from, and would have been integrated with, an EMR whose name means "particularly impressive" even if their response was anything but. Afte…

I’m curious for more details on what your templating system was and how it worked. If you’re up for sharing, I’d love to hear about it. I know the aforementioned EMR puts a lot of emphasis on their After Visit Summaries, which sounds somewhat similar to what you describe.

Feel free to email me. I'm dealing with a death close to me and some estate related issues so I may take some time to get back to you but I will.

For what it is worth, we never saw ourselves as a replacement for the After Visit Summaries but rather an adjunct that ensured said Summaries could be understood and utilized by non-speakers or ESL patients who perhaps are not as confident in their skills.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#53

Post by atdrummond »

nojito wrote: post #51
atdrummond wrote: post #40

I and some others in the healthcare/healthcare tech spaces volunteered to create a discharge templating system for many of the top non-English and non-Spanish languages used in the United States - specifically the top languages in the Northwest to start. Our offering utilized data from, and would have been integrated with, an EMR whose name means "particularly impressive" even if their response was anything but. Afte…

Doubt your company is large enough to partner with them. The issue with discharge templating is that EVERY single client under that company gets customized support from them until you are able to guarantee providing that level of custom support you don't have a shot in partnering with them. There's a reason why Caregility is the solution instead. https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/mount-sinai-eases-tran... Touchin…

It wasn't a company - there was zero profit motive here - and we had received very helpful advice from them and strong support until we got close to starting a trial, at which point communication suddenly ceased and it became clear something had changed with regards to our relationship with them.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#54

Post by Talanes »

munk-a wrote: post #35
throwawayboise wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's reasonable to rely on tools like Google Translate, it sucks but full language coverage isn't reasonable. Far better than what was possible before, when as a tourist you maybe had a phrasebook or something similar. This is part of the risk of travel into an area where you don't know the language. Also if you are going to permanently move to such a place, it's incumbent on you to become functionally flue…

> Also if you are going to permanently move to such a place, it's incumbent on you to become functionally fluent in the local language. Nobody there owes you a special accomodation. Functional fluency doesn't really cover hospital interactions though, right? I can live for decades in Paris without knowing what the word for chest pains or sprained ankle are.

I've spoken English my whole life and still struggle to express the exact sensation I'm feeling to a doctor.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#55

Post by [deleted] »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #42
jka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People travel recreationally, for business, and sometimes out of necessity to places where they don't speak the local language - perhaps you, friends, or family have, or will in future, experience those kinds of travel. Medical emergencies (or, to be honest, routine medical care) can be required for anyone, anywhere, for no particular reason. Care workers are no doubt familiar with that. For people to want to improve…

People travel recreationally, for business, and sometimes out of necessity to places where they don't speak the local language - perhaps you, friends, or family have, or will in future, experience those kinds of travel. Sure, my wifes English is very good but not perfect. I accompany her so I can give quick translations to medical terms she might not know. If we ever bring her parents here to live, guess whose job it…

[deleted]

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#56

Post by lotsofpulp »

atdrummond wrote: post #53
nojito wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt your company is large enough to partner with them. The issue with discharge templating is that EVERY single client under that company gets customized support from them until you are able to guarantee providing that level of custom support you don't have a shot in partnering with them. There's a reason why Caregility is the solution instead. https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/mount-sinai-eases-tran... Touchin…

It wasn't a company - there was zero profit motive here - and we had received very helpful advice from them and strong support until we got close to starting a trial, at which point communication suddenly ceased and it became clear something had changed with regards to our relationship with them.

Perhaps when they actually got serious, they escalated it to legal, and the lawyers shot it down due to your entity not being able to take enough liability off of their hands (conjecture). I can see the execution side stringing you along but no one having actually done the legal due diligence first, who may have shot it down early enough to prevent you wasting your time.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#57

Post by Gatsky »

atdrummond wrote: post #17
freedomben wrote: post #2

I can't imagine being a patient in pain trying to communicate that to a doctor who didn't speak the same language, especially when the pain was due to a different issue (as the article describes). The pendulum has fully swung from "pain is a vital sign" to "suck it up" and "anyone who complains about pain is a liar or a drug seeker unless they're older than 65 or have a visible external wound."[1] It's difficult even…

It has become an absolute joke. I have had 6 surgeries for Crohns, a back surgery due to wear and tear from high level athletics, and am a long term sufferer of an aggressive leukaemia. Despite using opioids responsibly for over a decade, I am regarded as nothing more than a drug seeking pest the very few times I have actively sought pain relief during in-patient hospital stays. Prior to being dropped entirely from m…

Sorry to hear you have this problem. Chronic pain understanding and management is medieval, and seemingly getting worse rather than better over time.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#58

Post by jka »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #42
jka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People travel recreationally, for business, and sometimes out of necessity to places where they don't speak the local language - perhaps you, friends, or family have, or will in future, experience those kinds of travel. Medical emergencies (or, to be honest, routine medical care) can be required for anyone, anywhere, for no particular reason. Care workers are no doubt familiar with that. For people to want to improve…

People travel recreationally, for business, and sometimes out of necessity to places where they don't speak the local language - perhaps you, friends, or family have, or will in future, experience those kinds of travel. Sure, my wifes English is very good but not perfect. I accompany her so I can give quick translations to medical terms she might not know. If we ever bring her parents here to live, guess whose job it…

Thanks - that all makes sense, and I agree that generally it makes sense to navigate life with realistic expectations.

Having optimism, and deciding to challenge existing limitations can both be useful too, though.

> I have no expectation that every hospital should be able to communicate in every language on earth.

I like the way you stated that. At first it made me think about how to improve translations. Now it's making me wonder whether there is a more universal common medical language (in many situations, I think that human care for each other doesn't require much communication at all).

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#59

Post by wswope »

kvathupo wrote: post #11
slackfan wrote: post #3

There has been a better option for a long time, called on-staff Medical Interpreters. In fact, my spouse worked as one for approximately seven years. Unfortunately due to hospitals consolidating into medical networks and cutting costs wherever they could, this went from on-staff interpreters, to contract interpreters, to on-call phone interpreters (works incredibly poorly), to google translate. Blame the beurocrats r…

What are countries with more functional healthcare systems doing differently? When it comes to comparisons with other countries, much of the dialogue in the US is centered on insurance coverage. That said, I'm curious if other countries have found better solutions to similarly fundamental issues, such as doctors working long hours, doctors being forced to maximize the number of patients, continued medical education,…

Career healthtech worker; opinions are my own; focusing only on the provider-specific questions you're asking:

Biggest problem (w.r.t. provider overwork and availability) is regulatory capture by AMA and hospital groups. The AMA has for decades induced an artificial shortage of MDs by limiting the number of available residency slots. In particular, there's an acute shortage of slots for primary care providers (gen practice, family med, internal medicine, OBGYN) - which combined with financial incentive, leads to an oversupply of specialists.

AMA is also very assertive about keeping alternative providers (e.g. nurse practitioners) from having the rights to perform certain procedures - again as a form of financial protectionism. I'm picking the worst possible example, because it goes wrong all the time, but in many LatAm countries for example, routine x-rays and ultrasounds are often read by technologists rather than radiologists. Broadly speaking, there's a chilling effect of provider liability, in that your PCP may not be a dermatologist, so instead of doing a mole screen themselves during your annual office visit, they send you for a specialist visit instead of doing it in house (to avoid the unlikely chance they miss something subtle the derm might've caught) - costing more money, fueling the oversupply of specialty care, and letting the "general" skills of GPs atrophy even further.

TLDR: The American Medical Association kills people.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#60

Post by djrogers »

ipaddr wrote: post #20
munk-a wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My SO had to seek medical attention in rural southern France (we were visiting Carcassone) - she initially sought care at the local emerg where there was not a translator available, she speaks high-school french but most of the conversation was carried out through miming and charades. A few days later, as instructed, she followed up with a local clinic where she prepared a written version of her condition and brought…

Usually your staff comes from the local population which gives you staff members who speak the languages you would need.

There are relatively few native French speakers in Vancouver..
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