In the U.S., individuals in 1 in 5 homes speak a language that’s not English. Research shows that in parts of the country where the English proficiency is less, so are good health outcomes. Those with limited English are more likely to be readmitted to the hospital and spend longer in emergency rooms and as outpatients and are more likely to be exposed to adverse medical events. Read More

The medical environment is one that attracts the most criticism if medical errors are made, especially if a loss of life is involved or a serious disability is inflicted on an individual. This happens only too often in many different medical settings including in a pharmacy when a pharmacist has written the wrong instructions on a bottle of tablets due to the ineligibility of a doctor’s handwriting. This sort of situation is easily avoidable had the physician taken a minute or two more in writing the instructions. Read More

Most countries admit that they don’t offer enough back up to those people in their countries who don’t speak the country’s native language well. Situations arise when a person who doesn’t have full command of their host country’s language falls sick. When this happens, medical staff will want to ask a lot of questions when determining the possible source of the sickness. This is to ensure that the right diagnosis is established. Often a healthcare interpreter is not available to interpret so a family member takes on the role. Read More

In the European Union (EU) alone, the medical devices industry attracts yearly sales that exceed 95 billion euro. It also employs 570,000 people. The EU has 24 official languages that are spread throughout 28 states, 9 more remote regions and 21 territories and overseas countries. If a medical device is to be marketed in the EU that’s an awful lot of translation work to effectively cover every possible language. So basically a medical device is a big deal in the EU. Read More

It might be surprising to know that in the United States more than 60 million people speak a language which is not English but is their preferred tongue. This means that people working in the medical profession invariably come across patients that are LEP (Limited English Proficiency). The physician knows that an LEP patient is at risk if there is a problem with understanding one another. Read More

It cannot be emphasised enough just how important it is that any sort of medical information is presented accurately, concisely and completely. This order of importance takes on new meaning whenever medical text of any sort is translated from one language to another. The prospect of even a simple error is very serious. Any business or government organisation that has anything to do with generating medical information must ensure that they use a professionally qualified medical translator whenever the need for translation arises. Read More