How a Translation Phone Helped Physicians Say 'Hello'

A client looked to reduce costs and increase efficiencies in language interpretation for large organizations. Data revealed that use of interpreters by enterprises was unpredictable from day to day. This made staffing decisions of multilingual personnel difficult and impractical.

This was further complicated by the fact that we live in an increasingly multilingual society.

Solution

MTSI helped design a custom, cordless, pre-programmed speaker phone that auto-dialed directly to a central office with the push of a button. Within seconds, an interpreter was online and available in Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian, Italian, Arabic, Greek and other languages. Other features included recording and archiving all interpretation sessions, supportive documentation of each session, and conference calling.

This service was especially important for physician-patient relationships, built through communication and the effective use of language. Along with clinical reasoning, observations, and non-verbal cues, skillful use of language establishes the medical interview as the clinician’s most powerful tool. Language barriers add to the complexity of the patient’s medical management.

MTSI’s client services extended the physician’s toolset by providing flexible, accurate, and immediate communication with the patient — reducing risk with the patient and family immediately conveying their needs in their language. Audio recordings documented each session for risk management purposes.