Doctors Often Turn to Google Translate to Talk to Patients. They Want a Better Option
By Katie Palmer
For some providers treating patients who do not speak English, Google Translate has become a fallback. Even when complying with federal requirements for meaningful access to language services for frequent needs and using interpreters for less commonly spoken languages, there may be delays or dialects for which it is hard to find a translator. "It's sort of [used] under the table," said Elaine Khoong, an internist and assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. The use of Google Translate is discouraged by health systems and state medical registration boards; but some providers and researchers want to give the tool more attention, so they can assess its use and risk in practice and create better versions to support traditional language services. "I do think it is the future," said Breena Taira, a clinical emergency medicine researcher at UCLA Health who recently studied discharge instructions translated by Google into seven languages. However, she cautions: "We have to do the work to make sure that we can convey written information in non-English languages in a safe way." In particular, research has shown that Google Translate can be risky to use when translating emergency department discharge instructions. Google has changed its algorithmic approach, and the tool has become more accurate, but mistakes still occur. "Obviously, Google Translate wasn't built for health care applications," said Nikita Mehandru, a PhD student in clinical artificial intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to accuracy, machine translation tools have legal and regulatory hurdles that must be addressed. The tools would have to comply with HIPAA, and the issue of who is liable for failed translations that cause harm would have to be determined. "We're already using ML and AI tools in health care, but it's usually hidden on the backend where people don't see it — for image interpretation, risk stratification tools," said Khoong. "But when you bring it up to the front end where patients can see it, the legality issues and the liability issues are a lot more concerning."
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