Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40966445›Full record

SynthesisJournal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA2025

Bridging language gaps in healthcare: a systematic review of the practical implementation of neural machine translation technologies in clinical settings.

Ibrahim Serhat Karakus, Inna Strechen, Ankita Gupta, Keivan Nalaie, Christine L Chen, Leslie C Hassett, Amelia K Barwise

Abstract readSystematic Review
In one paragraph

Synthesis in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Review
  3. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Ibrahim Serhat KarakusDepartment of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, United States.ORCID 0000-0002-7930-4001
Inna StrechenDepartment of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, United States.
Ankita GuptaDepartment of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, United States.
Keivan NalaieDepartment of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, United States.
Christine L ChenDepartment of Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, United States.
Leslie C HassettMayo Clinic Libraries, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, United States.
Amelia K BarwiseDivision of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, United States.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectivesEffective communication is crucial in healthcare, and for patients with a non-English language preference (NELP), professional interpreters are recognized as the gold standard in supporting bidirectional communication. However, interpreters are not always readily available, prompting the exploration of other options for translation and interpretation. The recent developments in artificial intelligence-based neural network translation tools, namely neural machine translation (NMT) may enable robust interpretation and translation. MATERIALS AND

methodsWe conducted a systematic review (SR) to evaluate the literature on NMT for this purpose. We did a comprehensive search of several databases with guidance from a professional librarian. The search was limited to the year 2000 onwards and English language. Title and abstract screening and full-text review were independently conducted by two reviewers with conflicts resolved by a third reviewer.

results2867 studies were identified with 10 studies included in the final analysis. Among these, six evaluated interpretation in real or simulated clinical settings and four examined translation of discharge materials. Google Translate and ChatGPT were assessed in several studies. Accuracy differed by language, with low-resource languages performing worse. DISCUSSION: NMT technologies in healthcare have several advantages including broad language accessibility and potential cost savings for institutions. Despite improved accuracy of these novel tools, due to possible critical errors NMT tools are not yet ready for widespread clinical use.

conclusionFuture studies should focus on optimizing evaluation methods as well as how best to integrate these technologies into real-time clinical settings.

Indexed as

Communication BarriersLanguageNeural Networks, ComputerTranslatingHumansinterpretationlarge language modelneural machine translationnon-English language preferencetranslation

Identifiers

PMID40966445
PMCPMC12626213

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.