Increasing state and federal requirements for communicating with limited English speakers have challenged hospital administrators to find cost-effective solutions for this problem.??

There are an estimated 47 million residents in the United States whose primary language isn't English. So there’s a high probability that all hospitals and healthcare clinics will encounter multilingual patients, this according to a recent article in Healthcare Finance News by Steff Deschenes.

Among the cost-effective solutions to manage this situation are technologies that offer speech-to-speech and text-to-text communication from one language to another, said Jonathan Litchman, senior vice president, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

SAIC produces Omnifluent Health, a linguistics translation program integrated with automatic speech recognition technology. "Multilingual communication solutions (have) a huge impact on the healthcare industry,” Litchmann said.

“Not only does it remove the language barrier between patients and their physicians, it also reduces the cost of medical interpretation and time associated with it, while increasing productivity and accuracy," he added.

Litchman outlined the following five benefits language translation technology has for healthcare.

1. Reduced costs

Healthcare language translation technology can boost productivity and significantly reduce interpretation costs for hospitals and providers.

"This sort of technology is a low-hanging fruit CFOs and senior admins hardly recognize," Litchman said. "That cost saving can be leveraged to be used for more critical, clinical applications that are much more sensitive to cost cutting," he added.

2. Reduced administrative and staff burden

Some healthcare organizations have a limited number of people immediately available for interpretation. "The wait time for interpreters can sometimes be upwards to 25 minutes," Litchman said. Speech-to-speech technology can solve this wait time problem, which places less of a burden on staff while increasing patient throughput.

"That level of healthcare productivity is really a goal for most hospital administrations. It's something that's highly sought after: reduce costs of translation and save money? That hits a benefit twice," he highlighted.

3. Increased quality and accuracy

Accuracy can be a major problem when it comes to language translation and interpretation. "Usually the interpreters aren't the ones also filling out the paperwork. It's important to make sure that what was said in one language is accurately being reflected in another language," said Litchman.

Inaccuracy can have significant implications on insurance reimbursement, billing, and healthcare record management.

"As a patient and physician are sitting side-by-side having a conversation that's being recorded in both languages on a screen, they can see if there's a mistake or if something needs clarification. There's no wait time: immediate corrections can be made with people involved," he emphasized.

4. Mobility

Another benefit of healthcare language translation technology is its mobility. Consider the back-up hospitals can face at an emergency department admissions desk due to lack of available interpreters. Having a language translation product brought to the ER when needed can reduce wait times for patients. Instead of having to wait for an interpreter to be found, the technology is already available in the hospital.

“It would increase the quality of patient care, throughput, and overall healthcare experience, which means patient satisfaction goes way up," said Litchman.

5. Clinical applications

Technology like this isn't just beneficial for the administrative side of hospital life; it also makes a big difference on the clinical side, too.

"You have three people in a conversation - the person speaking the foreign language, an interpreter and the physician. It seems like communication should flow freely and evenly in a situation like this, but great nuances can be missed," Litchman said.

Having two records in front of a physician, one in the patient's language and a translated version, allows medical practitioners to see whether the questions they're asking are truly being understood by both the patient and the interpreter.

"This technology allows us to capture the spirit and intent of a physician’s effort to communicate with a patient while avoiding the game of 'Telephone,'" said Litchman. "The message isn't going to get lost along the way."

So what do you think? If language was an issue and you were in a hospital emergency situation, would you prefer to wait for the availability of a human interpreter, or would a more readily available technological solution suffice for you? Please let us know your thoughts by posting a comment.

By Alex Dupont
Marketing Communications Specialist
Language Translation Inc.

See Also

• Machine translation is also known as automated or automatic language translation
  Raw machine translation may only be sufficient for communicating via social networks and video sharing sites, or for getting the gist of a foreign language website.
• Medical language interpretation can save lives
  Effective medical interpretation helps build bridges to better health care.
• 5 benefits of healthcare translation technology by Steff Deschenes
  Increasing state and federal requirements for communicating with limited English speakers have challenged hospital administrators to find cost-effective solutions.
• More about Omnifluent Health and SAIC
  The Omnifluent suite of human language technology products enables automated translation and transcription of multilingual audio and text, quickly rendering meaning across languages and cultures.