We often encounter obstacles that require quick and effective solutions throughout our lives. The most difficult and unpleasant of them can be health problems.
In the 2023 Global Monitoring Report, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank identified stagnation in the provision of quality, affordable, and accessible health care to people around the world. Unfortunately, many countries lack the necessary resources and infrastructure to diagnose and treat certain diseases. Residents are forced to seek medical care in other countries with better healthcare systems.
In such circumstances, language barriers in healthcare appear, preventing mutual understanding between patients and doctors. This can be a serious problem for patients seeking treatment in foreign-language countries. Due to misunderstandings with the doctor, they will be confused and unable to undergo treatment correctly.
Connected Care is an innovative platform that helps doctors and patients in mutual understanding. It offers support and facilitates translation and communication between therapists and patients. With its help, you can access high-quality medical interpretation anytime, in any part of the world.
In this article, we’ll describe the benefits and strategies for overcoming language barriers in healthcare using the CC platform and determine which healthcare organizations have successfully implemented and used it.
Understanding Language Barriers in Healthcare
What Are Language Barriers?
Language barriers are any obstacles that prevent effective communication between people who speak different languages. They refer to situations where people cannot communicate effectively and reach mutual understanding due to a lack of a common language, cultural differences, or other reasons.
Language barriers also create challenges across different industries, including healthcare, education, travel, and business. It’s especially serious for healthcare, as clear communication between patients and medical care providers is essential for accurate diagnosis and treatment. Misunderstandings in medical data can have serious consequences, such as misdiagnosis or inappropriate treatment, which are unacceptable in health matters. Effective communication is vital to ensure that medical care is easily understood and provided accurately.
Such language barriers are a common problem today, affecting individuals and organizations in various contexts. Understanding the impact of such barriers can help develop strategies to overcome them and improve communication.
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The Impact of Language Barriers on Patient Care
The process of providing effective care and treatment is complex and multifaceted. Patient interaction with healthcare providers and effective dialogue are essential, but language barriers can make it quite difficult. For example, such barriers complicate conveying information about symptoms, medical history, procedures, or postoperative care recommendations.
In 2016, a study conducted in US hospitals, “Language Barriers and Patient Safety Risks in Hospital Care: A Mixed Methods Study,” found out how language obstacles affect patient safety.
“If a misdiagnosis is made, it can be the difference between life and death,” says Dr. Shanti Karupiah. “Language barriers can cause medical harm.”
A woman who went to her GP with a urinary tract infection (UTI) unfortunately missed the chance to catch her cancer early because of the decision to rely on her son for interpretation. Dr. Shanti Karupia said that when the woman was examined after some time, she was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer. Therefore, the Senedd report strongly recommended that interpreters be provided to patients to ensure that potential medical problems are not overlooked.
Let’s consider the four major consequences of language barriers in healthcare between patients and doctors:
Psychological discomfort
Language barriers can cause psychological stress experienced by patients anxious about their health. When they struggle to understand their doctors, their fears are heightened. This lack of communication and understanding further disrupts the patient’s peace of mind.
Risk of errors in diagnosis and treatment
When patients attempt to describe their health using English or the doctor’s language with limited proficiency, there’s a risk of inaccurate information. If the doctor fails to understand, it can lead to incorrect diagnoses and treatments.
Lack of trust and communication
A trusting relationship with the patient cannot be built without understanding the doctor’s words. Mutual understanding between the patient and therapist is an important aspect of quality care.
Errors in medical records
Occasionally, patients are requested to complete the documentation and history themselves upon arrival at the clinic. For example, a patient comes from Latvia to Germany for treatment and thinks they have sufficient German to get by without a translator’s help. They will make many language mistakes that may cost them their health. Unfortunately, patients can’t know all medical terminology well enough to correctly translate their symptoms, test results, diagnoses, etc.
Accurate medical translation can only be provided by qualified specialists – interpreters. The Connected Care provides only experienced medical translators. Book a demo now: fill out the form, and our team will contact you shortly. 24/7 Global Support!
The Role of Connected Care in Overcoming Language Barriers
Defining Connected Care in a Multilingual Healthcare Setting
Connected Care stands out from its competitors because it uses the latest technologies and human interpretation to communicate effectively between patients and doctors. The main goal of this platform is to provide interpretation solutions, offering a certified and convenient service for patients and therapists who do not speak the same language.
Connected Care is valued internationally by organizations and individuals because it offers 24/7 global support from professionals who translate and interpret more than 200 languages, including American Sign Language (ASL) and dialects. The fast and affordable translations provided by this platform are useful and reliable in meeting the needs of patients and doctors.
The on-demand interpretation software platform is convenient thanks to audio and video recording capabilities, so it can be viewed and re-listened if necessary. It happens like this: the doctor writes down medical advice and instructions in one language, and then an interpreter translates them into the patient’s language using specialized software.
Technological Solutions for Translation and Interpretation
Let’s check out various technology solutions available for translation and interpretation and consider their benefits and limitations.
| Translation Type | Advantages | Limitations |
| Machine Translation |
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| Video Remote Interpretation |
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| Speech recognition |
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| Mobile Applications |
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| Wearable Translation Devices |
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As you can see, healthcare translation and interpreting technology solutions provide effective tools for overcoming language barriers and improving communication.
Strategies for Overcoming Language Barriers in Healthcare through Connected Care
Let’s explore some strategies for overcoming language barriers in healthcare through Connected Care, including the main ones: implementing language access services, training healthcare providers, and leveraging digital tools and telehealth.
Implementing Language Access Services
Implementing language access services is becoming an increasingly common practice within Connected Care. Our dedicated platform offers access to professional interpreters, while also using modern technologies.
A study published in the PubMed database confirms that patients’ use of high-quality interpreters improves their rapport with doctors, reducing the risk of dangerous medical errors. To take full advantage of medical interpreters, healthcare organizations must integrate them into their operations. This means involving medically trained interpreters from the beginning of a patient’s journey and including them in discussions between healthcare providers and patients.
Training Healthcare Providers
Through Connected Care, you can organize special educational webinars to discuss the following topics: cultural competencies, how to overcome language barriers in healthcare, intercultural communication skills, and understanding of different languages and cultures. Educated medical staff are very important to the patient, so such training will help create trusting relationships with patients and ensure more effective communication with them.
Leveraging Digital Tools and Telehealth
Using digital tools and telemedicine is one more solution to minimize language barriers. Patients can receive medical care remotely via video link, allowing doctors to conduct consultations distantly, while built-in instant translation features facilitate communication in different languages.
The Connected Care platform provides quite a wide range of solutions for overcoming language barriers in healthcare. These strategies can ensure access to quality care for all patients, regardless of their language skills and cultural backgrounds.
Case Studies: Success Stories of Overcoming Language Barriers in Healthcare
As mentioned above, many people are forced to travel to other countries to receive treatment in more professional hospitals. Fortunately, the world is increasingly paying attention to this problem. Using The Language Access Program at Boston Medical Center in the USA as an example, we will look at a successful story of how language barriers can be overcome in healthcare.
Boston Medical Center’s situation is as follows: The medical center serves a population that speaks more than 60 languages. Often, patients and doctors could not communicate normally due to the lack of a common language, which made diagnosing and treating diseases difficult.
To address this situation, a comprehensive initiative was created to improve communication between patients and healthcare professionals. This was the Language Access Program at Boston Medical Center (BMC).
The program’s main aim is to provide translation services in different languages and facilitate communication between healthcare professionals and patients. The service can be provided in several options: live, telephone, and video remote interpreting (VRI). Interpreters were specially trained in all cultural and linguistic peculiarities to ensure that medical appointments were comfortable and successful.
The medical center also provided translated patient education materials, consent forms, and discharge instructions in multiple languages to ensure patients were fully informed.
This attentive approach led to mutual understanding and building trust between doctors and patients. The program also reduced barriers to accessing medical care for patients with limited English proficiency because they can now receive care in English. Overall, the program improved the health outcomes of its patients.
This example shows that being attentive to the cultures and languages of its patients helps healthcare providers better fulfill their duty to keep people healthy.
Challenges and Considerations
With Connected Care, difficulties in working with clients who do not speak the same language as their healthcare providers can be reduced or eliminated altogether.
Thanks to the experienced interpreters on Connected Care, who know all aspects of the medical industry, challenges and problems with understanding the treatment and other issues related to the health of patients can be avoided. The platform pays special attention to ensuring that information is translated clearly and understandably because mutual understanding is the key to success.
Patients and their therapists can conduct consultations comfortably and confidentially with the platform’s user-friendly interface and improved security system.
Quality assurance specialists help to avoid bugs in the platform because Connected Care is constantly monitored and checked to ensure that the translation is always of high quality.
Overall, the Connected Care platform helps avoid problems and challenges associated with cultural and linguistic differences, as well as technical support, because the specialists always do their best to ensure a good patient experience!
Conclusion
Mutual understanding between the patient and therapist is very important. However, cultural and language barriers in healthcare can prevent hospitals from providing quality services and keeping their patients healthy.
Connected Care is an innovative simultaneous interpretation platform that helps overcome difficulties in helping patients understand the course of treatment and all possible risks.
Such a platform is indispensable in the modern world, where more people travel to other countries with more developed medicine to receive quality care and treatment. The challenge of language differences makes such people even more nervous because the doctor may make an incorrect diagnosis due to misunderstanding. Professional interpreters from Connected Care is always ready to help in cases where the doctor and patient do not speak the same language. They know cultural characteristics and the specifics of medicine to convey information accurately and reliably.
Connected Care provides fast and affordable translation and interpretation services to ensure that every patient receives proper treatment and that hospitals can provide high-quality services. Request a free trial now: https://cc.thelanguagedoctors.org/
