A Paradigm shift in International Client Communication and Medical Records Translation
Current Practices:
You know the situation all too well – a patient has an illness and has exhausted all treatment options in their own country. Their doctors recommend that the patient seek treatment in the US healthcare system and your hospital has a wonderful reputation and track record for the appropriate treatment.
In the age of communication, the first thing a patient would do would be to go to their computer and start searching for the best treatment options in the US or better, go directly to your website because your hospital was referred to them.
They would be searching for information regarding the possible treatment options but at the same time, your hospital also need information from the patient to determine eligibility for treatment.
You would need:
patient intake forms,
insurance documents,
financial documents,
passports,
consent forms,
And most importantly, existing medical records.
Your website may provide language support, however, your hospital, like the majority in the US, might have a hard time exchanging information back and forth with the patient and when the time comes to do so, would ask the patient to translate the medical records to English.
Hence a painful journey begins for the patient… bogging down a person who is already not feeling well, or for their worried relatives who want to help with paperwork or translation chores. This is not the most humane or efficient way to begin the treatment process.
Problems with the Current Practices
Initial Inquiry: The patient doesn’t speak English at all or not well enough and they need to somehow get in touch with you. Sometimes it is a very difficult process even in the patient’s own language let alone in another language they may not have full command of. Do they just dial the hospital’s number and hope that you have an interpreter who speaks the patient’s language? How many interpreters would you need to keep on staff?
Accuracy: If you are in the medical field, you already know how important it is to translate your medical records accurately. A Google search quickly reveals how many people have died or undergone a wrong surgery due to translation mistakes. Or how many hospitals have been sued for hundreds of millions of dollars, again for operating on the wrong parts of the body, because of inaccurate translations.
Speed: (time is of the essence) The speed of the translation services, perhaps, is one of the most important parts of the treatment process. You don’t want your patients to sit around and wait for the translation agency to get back to them with a quote and how long it will take them to complete the translation. This process usually takes days if not weeks depending on the complexity of the medical records.
Cost: Most US hospitals would ask you to find translation services on your own – very few get involved with the translation process and only some provide a list of translation resources. The rest is up to the patient. Your patient then goes back to their computer and starts searching for translation options in their own country, potentially wasting their valuable time.
File Transfer: Now all the documents may be translated, and the patient has a bunch of paper and/or digital files in their hands. They are probably not tech wizards who know how to transfer all these files to your hospital. How do you send these files to the US hospital securely? Send a WhatsApp message, email attachment, take photos of these records? How about those complex file types in their original formats? How do you upload them? Most international patients end up using a combination of these methods and inevitably make things more complicated for your hospital staff.
After the Treatment: Everything works fine in the US Hospital, your patient is well, and being discharged. But then they are handed a bunch of new medical records while treated in the US. The translation process starts again, this time back to the patient’s language for post-care. The patient’s doctors in their country will need them. It really is a painful process.
The future of Medical Translation Starts here with MotaWord
Communicating with your international patients in their native language and helping them get their medical records translated should not be all that difficult in this day and age, especially with MotaWord. Here is how it works:
Your potential patients visit your website: From the beginning, they will be able to view the content in their own language. We have over 17,000+ qualified translators around the world awaiting your translation work and we can handle translation in over 90 languages. Most hospitals can only process patient inquiries in a handful of languages. The patient inquires about your services in their language and your staff will see this translated into English within less than an hour. Your staff will write back, and your patient will get their messages back in their language, again also less than an hour – it is not magic, nor is it machine translation – it is our 17,000+ qualified translators around the globe working to help you and your patients.
When the patient needs to translate their existing medical records, all they need to do is to follow the instructions on your hospital’s web portal, and answer a few questions from your hospital’s website as shown below:
The patient copies/pastes or uploads the content, MotaWord detects the language, and the patient simply picks which languages they want their documents to be translated into. After entering an email address the patient is on their way! MotaWord’s translators will deliver the translated document back to the patient and to your staff in the original format in which it was uploaded. All the translation work is done on our secure MotaWord platform. No content is ever emailed to any translator and translations are performed by multiple translators through a process managed by Artificial Intelligence.
This process is fast – you get an instant quote and estimated duration for delivery. You can rest assured that all translations delivered by MotaWord are as accurate as possible. Similarly, after the patient is discharged from your facility, you can have the patient go through this simple process to translate the medical records generated for them in your hospital.
In short, you remove the pain of the translation of medical records from the pre-arrival, in-hospital, and post-discharge process and keep a 24/7 communication channel open with your existing and potential international patients. With MotaWord, you will
Improve international patient satisfaction
Increase the chance of treating more international patients who may not speak one of the major languages
Save time and money for your hospital and patients
Ensure the highest quality and accuracy
Call us today to learn more about MotaWord and how we can help you with all your translation needs.
Girk Cakmak
BD, Healthcare
(347) 884 1144
girk@motaword.com