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Effective communication between healthcare providers and patients and next of kin is critical for healthcare provision. As our society becomes increasingly multicultural, it is likely that medical staff will more frequently be faced with language barriers with their patients and relatives. Interpreters provide an excellent service but may not always be available, for example after hours or for urgent medical care. Translation software such as Google Translate (Google Inc, Mountain View, CA, USA), which can translate 90 languages, may overcome this problem. This application can be installed on most portable devices such as smartphones, tablets or computers capable of internet access. After entry of a word or sentence in the reference language by voice, text or even scanned images, translation occurs to the other language as both voice and text in real-time (Figure 1).
There is a record of the conversation for later reference, which can also be provided to the patient. In 2010 Nguyen-Lu, Reide and Yentis reported that Google Translate was a poor aid for pre-anaesthetic assessment but Mandarin was not included in their assessment1. As Mandarin-speaking patients are increasing in frequency in our Australian practice, and there have...