Can Google Translate Give Good Discharge Instructions? (Can Doctors?)

Google Translate did pretty well, and many of the errors resulted from problems in the original English instructions.

Researchers used Google Translate to translate 100 free-text emergency department discharge instructions (created de novo by physicians) from English into Spanish and Chinese. The resulting text was then back-translated into English by bilingual translators. The researchers compared the original English versions to the back-translated English versions to determine the proportion with any dangerous errors.

Two percent of Spanish and 8% of Chinese sentence translations had potential for significant harm. The researchers noted that in many cases of erroneous translation, the phrasing of the original English instructions was inaccurate, idiosyncratic, or used abbreviations.

Reviewing Author

Daniel J. Pallin, MD, MPH

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardPortola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Speaker’s BureauPeerView Institute for Medical Education

Grant/Research SupportAgency for Healthcare Research and Quality; CDC; NIH–National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; NIH–National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); NIH–NIAID–Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group; Merck; Pfizer; Boehringer-Ingelheim; Shire; Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Novartis; bioMérieux; Siemens; Rapid Pathogen Screening; Magnolia; Stago; Innovative Biosensors; Molecular Detection, Inc.; Dyax Corp.; Trius Pharmaceuticals

Daniel J. Pallin, MD, MPH

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardPortola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Speaker’s BureauPeerView Institute for Medical Education

Can Google Translate Give Good Discharge Instructions? (Can Doctors?)

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Reviewing Author