As a medical professional, it is important to be able to provide quality care to patients who may not speak the same language as you. This is where interpretation services come in handy! By providing medical translation services, you can ensure all patients receive the best possible care. Language barriers can cause communication problems between people and their medical providers, which can lead to life-altering mistakes. In some cases, patients may not understand their diagnosis or treatment plan simply because they cannot read the medical documents in their own language. If they have limited English proficiency, they may undergo medical treatments without a thorough understanding of side effects, financial implications, or expected health outcomes.

Healthcare Interpretation & Translation Services

Healthcare interpretation and translation services are professional services that help healthcare providers communicate with patients who speak different languages or have limited English proficiency. By providing onsite interpreting services and language access, healthcare providers can ensure people receive the best possible care, regardless of their native language or literacy level. In addition, qualified medical interpreters can also provide emotional support to patients and their families. Healthcare interpretation and translation services can make quality healthcare more accessible to everyone.

Medical interpreting services provide a much-needed bridge between patients and medical providers. By hiring professional interpreters, you can ensure ongoing communication is clear, culturally competent, and accurate so people receive the treatment they need to take care of their health.

When it comes to choosing an interpreting services provider, find a company you can trust. Do your research and choose reputable interpreters with experience in the medical field. You should also look for a provider that offers a wide range of interpreting services in multiple languages, so you can find the right interpreters for your specific needs.

Phone/Telehealth Interpreting Services

Telehealth interpreting is a professional interpreting service that helps healthcare professionals communicate with patients over the phone or through video technology. This type of interpreting service is becoming increasingly popular as more healthcare providers are using telehealth technology to provide care. Telehealth interpreting services ensure patients understand their health status and receive the best possible care, regardless of language, even when they’re unable to connect with a provider in person. For those facing serious illnesses that prevent them from in-person care, tele-health interpreters can provide emotional support to patients and their families.

Video remote interpretation (VRI) is another professional interpreting service that helps healthcare professionals communicate with patients via video conferencing. VRI is helpful for people who communicate using non-spoken languages, such as American Sign Language, or those who are deaf or hard of hearing and need ASL language services.

Telehealth and over-the-phone interpreting services are the next best alternative for onsite interpreting. If emergency medicine or urgent care is needed, virtual access to professional medical interpreters can save lives.

Medical Document Translation

Medical document translation is the process of translating medical documents from one language to another. Healthcare providers and office managers may need to translate medical documents for many reasons. In some cases, people may not be able to read or understand medical documents written in a language other than their own. This can have ethical and medical consequences. In other cases, healthcare providers need to translate medical records to provide care to people who speak different languages or who travel between countries for medical care.

There are many different types of medical documents that may need to be translated for language access, including:

• Medical records
• Treatment plans
• Discharge summaries
• Lab results
• Radiology reports
• Pharmacy records
• Medication labels and dosage information
• User manuals
• Medical bills
• Medical training
• HIPPA Regulations

When it comes to medical translation, choose medical interpreters that comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). This act protects the privacy of patients’ medical information. Any company that has access to medical information must comply with these standards and ensure patient information is secure and confidential. When you choose a medical translation provider, ask about their HIPPA compliance practices.

Improve Patient Satisfaction

It is no secret that patients who can communicate effectively with their health providers are more satisfied with their care and have better health outcomes. Clear, open communication is especially challenging for patients whose native language differs from their healthcare provider. Imagine trying to understand medical terminology in your own language and then think about doing the same in an entirely different language. Language access becomes even more important and language services can make all the difference for these patients! Medical interpreting services can improve patient satisfaction by bridging the gap between patients and their care team, leading to better care and improved health.

Language barriers should never get in the way of providing quality healthcare. Medical interpreting and translation services can break down barriers in real time and make quality care accessible to everyone. Whether your organization needs medical translation or interpreting services, INGCO International is here to help. We offer in-person interpreting, as well as on-demand and virtual options. Regardless of where you are in the world, we have language services support available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

INGCO International is Leading the Way to Better Care

INGCO International is a trusted language services provider with the experience and expertise to serve patients in 200+ languages. We work closely with medical providers around the world to interpret medical diagnoses and treatment plans and provide an additional layer of support for patients navigating the complexities of healthcare. We value quality and accuracy above all, and we diligently comply with HIPPA requirements to ensure people get the best translation and interpreting experience throughout their healthcare journey. You can feel confident in your decision to work with INGCO International, as we offer a wide range of services, including medical document translation, video remote interpreting, medical interpretation, and more.

If you are a healthcare professional, don’t let language stand in the way of providing quality care to the people who rely on you to feel better. Our expert linguists will partner with you to remove language barriers so you can focus on providing exceptional care. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you better communicate with your multilingual patients through medical translation and interpreting services.

A trip to the emergency room is a fraught experience for anyone. It involves navigating patient intake, testing, and treatment options—all during a crisis. For patients with limited English proficiency (LEP), language barriers make the prospect of emergency care even scarier.

While medical interpreters make all the difference during the visit, sometimes patients need aftercare instructions in their own language. Hospitals typically have materials about medical conditions and diagnosis in more than one language. But what do you do when someone needs patient-specific instructions? Turn to Google Translate, right? Not so fast!

The Pros and Cons of Google Translate  

Speed is the biggest advantage of Google Translate, especially in a busy emergency room. All you need to do is choose the translation language and start typing. Plus, it may be better than sending the patient home with no instructions at all.

Now for the drawback. Machine translation still isn’t as accurate as human translation. And in medicine, accuracy is of the utmost importance. Translation errors have led to permanent injuries and even death. Sending someone home with poorly translated instructions may do more harm than good.

Translating Emergency Department Instructions

When it comes to translating discharge instructions, the results are mixed. A 2021 joint study by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Olive View-UCLA Medical Center found that accuracy comes down to which languages you translate.

During the study, doctors analyzed widely spoken languages (Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, and Korean) alongside less common ones (Armenian and Farsi). Twenty volunteers without professional experience as linguists or healthcare providers reviewed 20 patient discharge forms and their corresponding translations into those seven languages.  

Overall, Google Translate accurately conveyed the meaning of the instructions 82.5% of the time. But accuracy varied by language from 55 to 94%–with the highest accuracy rates for Spanish (94%) and Chinese (82%) and lowest rates for Farsi (67.5%) and Armenian (55%).

Writing systems also had an impact on accuracy. For example, Farsi, which is written from right to left, made no sense after the initial translation.

The good news is that Google Translate improves with feedback. That means it has the potential to become a better tool for emergency rooms. It’s just not ready to stand alone yet.

How to Improve Medical Translation Accuracy

Of course, healthcare providers still need to translate instructions for patients before they go home. Here are a few ways to help improve their accuracy:

• Ask the medical interpreter to review the Google translation, if you’re working with one.
• Let the patient know that the translation may have errors and to contact their doctor if they have any questions or concerns.

How INGCO International Can Help

As you can see, interpreters not only assist with spoken communication, but can help ensure your written instructions are accurate as well. At INGCO International, our certified medical interpreters are trained to work in all medical settings—including emergency rooms and urgent care. Plus, with interpreting services in over 200 languages, you never have to worry about getting the language support you need.

As for general medical translations, we help with those, too. Thanks to our quality assurance protocols, our certified medical translators provide document translations that meet the highest standards.

Want to learn more about how we can assist with your language needs? Contact us today!

On November 27^th, in the midst of the season’s first heavy snowstorm, a tragic fire broke out in a high-rise apartment building in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

We received a phone call around 7 am requesting us to dispatch interpreters as soon as possible to the scene of the tragic and chaotic apartment fire. We immediately sent interpreters, who walked into a state of unknown tragedy. 

Upon arrival, our interpreters immediately began conveying messages to residents and loved ones. They spent the entire day facilitating communication between residents and emergency response teams and social service organizations on the scene of the accident. It was grueling work, emotionally and professionally demanding, as our interpreters were called from one family to another.

Interpreters are trained to jump into an unknown variety of situations, and, on any given day, they typically have very little background information as to what they will encounter. Throw into the mix emergencies, and that leads to even more unknown and unrest. 

And when lives are on the line and loved ones pass away, we go, we show up, we don’t ask questions, we simply perform. And we don’t deal with our emotional responses until the day’s work is done. This emotional response can oftentimes result in vicarious trauma.

“I’ve never seen dead bodies before… I had to identify bodies with family members… I wasn’t prepared for that.” Stated one of our interpreters. 

Vicarious Trauma and Interpreters

According to the American Counseling Organization, vicarious trauma is “the emotional residue of exposure that counselors have from working with people as they are hearing their trauma stories and become witnesses to the pain, fear, and terror that trauma survivors have endured.” The effect of vicarious trauma on the professional interpreter has long been documented to cause the same effects. 

Clearly interpreters are not counselors, as we are but conveyors of messages from one language to another. Yet we cannot help but to absorb the trauma that surrounds us while we are immersed in a variety of interpreting situations, and that trauma presents itself physically, emotionally and psychologically. Undealt with, vicarious trauma can result in mental health challenges like depression and anxiety. Interpreters experience vicarious trauma differently than other professionals because we not only witness the trauma, we channel it to our clients so that they can understand it. We must fully grasp the message and convert it to another language, and fully express it. There is no way that an interpreter can avoid vicarious trauma, as it is not possible to turn off our emotional reactions, so we are compelled to look towards best practices to help alleviate the short- and long-term effects. We hope that these best practices help combat the negative effects of vicarious trauma like depression and anxiety. 

Interpreters are called into situations oftentimes with little to no preparation or background information, for example, emergencies. When our team was called to react and provide services at the Minneapolis fire, none of us had any understanding of the scope of the tragedy. None of us knew that there was loss of life. None of us knew that we were asking our interpreters to walk into a burning building and help family members identify deceased loved ones. None of us knew that our interpreters would spend the next two days researching how to transport a body across the globe to fulfill the deceased’s wish to be buried in their home country. None of us knew, at the time, how much this tragedy would affect the 500+ residents that call the building their home, that was now destroyed, one day before Thanksgiving. 

Yet this is what we do on a daily basis. Thankfully, fires don’t occur daily, but life does, and life keeps all of us on our toes and our extremely talented and trained interpreters walk into unknown situations every single day. 

Book interpreters now for Arab Health to ensure the highest quality interpreter for all of your language needs.

Arab Health is the largest gathering of healthcare and trade professionals in the MENA region. The 2018 edition of the event is expected to welcome more than 4,200 exhibiting companies and 103,000 attendees from 150+ countries. On-site interpreters will be available to support exhibitors and attendees in over 60 language pairs.

The 2018 Arab Health show will feature the following specialty zones:

• Personal Healthcare Technology
• Hands-on-Training
• 3D Medical Printing Zone
• Dealers & Distributors
• Arab Health Congress
• Medical Laboratory

Language interpreters are available with training and experience specific to each zone. Our interpreters receive the highest level of training in all areas related to the Arab Health conference. Each interpreter is specifically matched to our client’s needs.

Other Services Available:

• On-Site Interpreters
• Consecutive Interpreters
• Simultaneous Interpreters
• Over-the-Phone Interpreters
• Document Translation
• Localization
• Voiceover & Subtitling

We look forward to hearing from you to book interpreters now for Arab Health.

Audits provide an opportunity to identify errors in the manufacturing process that could result in a non-compliant product. They are often times conducted in foreign countries for a variety of industries including manufacturing of medical devices, pharmaceutical drugs and electronic and technical parts. Audits are an important part of business especially when an organization is looking to expand distribution or sales overseas. Interpreters are an essential part of the audit process to ensure that all parties are able to communicate in a seamless and accurate way. Auditors usually have a limited time-frame to complete their responsibilities. Many auditors visit several companies within a country during their visit and rely heavily on the skill set of the audit interpreters to ensure that there are no delays or complications.

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Audit interpreters are often times positioned as facilitators of all types of communication which means that the interpreter conveys the core meaning of the auditor’s questions and comments as well as the clients’ responses. This requires the interpreter to possess not only excellent interpreting skills but also the “soft” skills that allow them to relate to the parties of the audit. This ensures that all participants will have excellent and comprehension of the issues discussed. Interpreters are a neutral third party that also has the ability to build and strengthen personal relationships; they act in a sense as a “bridge” between the parties so that they can meet on neutral ground. It is essential to pair the interpreter with the client that will be the best overall fit for audit success. INGCO is proud of the extensive network of audit interpreters that we work with regularly across the world. We are very strict in our attention to detail when setting up language services for audits in particular because of their important nature.

ISO Certification: Does is apply to interpreting?

Recently, clients have asked us about the possibility of ISO (International Organization for Standardization) certification for audit interpreters. At the current time, the ISO 17100:2015 that applies to written document translation services does not apply to interpreting services. You may find information in regards to ISO requirements as they relate to language services here.

We are proud to offer professional audit interpreters for manufacturing facilities across the United States in over 200 languages. Selecting the right interpreter for your audit is essential for audit success. We understand that the audit process is critical to your business success and with over 10 years of experience working with interpreters across the globe we can guarantee you seamless and expert solutions. We look forward to hearing from you to learn how we can support your upcoming audit needs. Contact us now!

When a doctor performs an independent medical examination (IME) on a patient who speaks limited or no English, professional IME interpreters are key to make an accurate diagnosis. IME interpreters are important for accurate results.

In order to achieve the highest level of communication between doctor and patient, all parties involved should understand the role and responsibilities of the interpreter. The right IME interpreter will make the IME successful.

3 Steps to Success With IME Interpreters

1. Interpreter Selection: Select an interpreter with appropriate training and testing.
2. Brief the Interpreter: The interpreter should be provided background information before the appointment so that she can perform to her highest capability.
3. Role & Responsibility of the Interpreter: All parties involved should understand the role and responsibilities of the interpreter.

Selecting IME Interpreters

It is important to select a neutral, prepared and certified language interpreter for independent medical exams. Selecting the WRONG language interpreter could have detrimental effects on the medical exam. A neutral interpreter understands the role and responsibilities of the professional interpreter and act professionally at all times in accordance with their professional duties. Qualified IME interpreters are bound by the Code of Ethics for interpreters.

Briefing IME Interpreters

The interpreter should be provided background information before the appointment so that she can perform to her highest capability. Professional interpreters prepare for assignments in advance so they can accurately convey important messages. IME interpreters must be provided with information so that they can properly interpret. Background information may include:

• Patient’s name and date of birth
• Patient’s country of origin
• Profession (especially for workers’ compensation IME’s)
• Relevant medical background

Role & Responsibility of IME Interpreters

All parties involved should understand the role and responsibilities of the interpreter. All practicing healthcare interpreters, including IME interpreters, are expected to adhere to published codes of ethics for interpreters who work in the field of health care

The International Medical Interpreters Association lists the following 12 key codes for all medical interpreters:

1. Interpreters will maintain confidentiality of all assignment-related information.
2. Interpreters will select the language and mode of interpretation that most accurately conveys the content and spirit of the messages of their clients.
3. Interpreters will refrain from accepting assignments beyond their professional skills, language fluency, or level of training.
4. Interpreters will refrain from accepting an assignment when family or close personal relationships affect impartiality.
5. Interpreters will not interject personal opinions or counsel patients.
6. Interpreters will not engage in interpretations that relate to issues outside the provision of health care services unless qualified to do so.
7. Interpreters will engage in patient advocacy and in the intercultural mediation role of explaining cultural differences/practices to health care providers and patients only when appropriate and necessary for communication purposes, using professional judgment.
8. Interpreters will use skillful unobtrusive interventions so as not to interfere with the flow of communication in a triadic medical setting.
9. Interpreters will keep abreast of their evolving languages and medical terminology.
10. Interpreters will participate in continuing education programs as available.
11. Interpreters will seek to maintain ties with relevant professional organizations in order to be up-to-date with the latest professional standards and protocols.
12. Interpreters will refrain from using their position to gain favors from clients.

When the medical provider is relying on the IME interpreter to convey accurate and concise information, he or she is in fact relying on the medical interpreter. One mistake by the IME interpreter could mean that the independent medical exam results could be wrong.

INGCO International is proud to work with highly trained and certified IME interpreters across the United States. Contact us now to schedule your IME interpreter.