Breaking down language barriers
The plight of seriously ill patients who don't speak English was what spurred Waitemata DHB intensive care specialist Janet Liang to enter -- and eventually win -- this year's Clinicians' Challenge.
"Communicating to different ethnicities and across cultures can be challenging enough at the best of times. The situation can be particularly difficult when the patient is in the emergency department and so sick we need information faster than we can get hold of an interpreter."
Dr Liang highlighted the need for a portable language interpreter system that can deal with clinical and colloquial terms. "Urgent questions about the patient's medical history should be worded in a way the average person in the street can understand and lead to a simple ‘yes', ‘no' or ‘I don't know' answer." There's currently nothing on the market that fills this brief, she says. Dr Liang also suggests diagrams or videos are added.
Other clinicians have expressed an interest in any solution she's part of but so far no vendor has come up with one, although she has had conversations with several developers.
Judging panel member Denise Irvine, who works part-time for Waikato DHB as Nurse coordinator and also runs her own eHealth consultancy, says they thought it was an "excellent project" to support given New Zealand's increasing international population.
"Once the pilot project was completed successfully, it could be used extensively nationally so it would definitely be worth the investment cost as well as meeting needs of both clinicians and consumers. It would meet legal and cultural needs within a wide clinical area."
