Your smartphone as a translator when you see patients

Many people don't realize that today's modern smartphone can actually be used as a translator while you're seeing patients who speak a different language. The voice recognition + translation isn't 100% accurate and it may be a bit cumbersome, but it may really help you when you're in a pinch.

Want to give it a try? Download the Google Translate app and give it a try. The next time you walk into the exam room and you encounter a patient that doesn't speak English, pull out your pocket interpreter.

Lunch with one of the founders of MediBabble Translator

Earlier this month, I was at Stanford for the Medicine 2.0 conference and I had the opportunity to have lunch with Dr. Alex Blau, one of the founders of MediBabble Translator. He's currently working for Doximity as a medical director, but he's also keeping himself busy with MediBabble Translator.

MediBabble is a free, professional-grade medical translation tool. MediBabble is a robust history-taking and examination application designed to improve the safety, efficiency, and overall quality of care for non-English speaking patients.

MediBabble Translator was featured in this UCSF news story.

The following is a short video where UCSF interviewed the founders of MediBabble:

Have you tried the Google Translate App with your patients?

The Google Translate app for Android translates speech in real time. It works best if you don't have a heavy accent. Google Translate is a free mobile app (developed by Google) and you can instantly translate text between more than 50 languages. It includes:

Text-to-speech
and
Voice input

Soon, we won't need interpreters because we'll be using our technology, right? Maybe.

Here's a short video showing you Google Translate in action: