With the right medical translation services, businesses of all kinds can know that their message is being explained properly to the public. However, KUOW, a local Washington news affiliate, explained that some health exchanges are receiving poor reviews when it comes to the translation options available to patients.
Angele Surault, director of Translations Services at CETRA Language Solutions near Philadelphia, told the news source that she is not impressed that Oregon’s health exchange uses Google Translate. According to Surault, the results do not look professional.
To prove her point, Surault translated questions on the Cover Oregon website into her native French, and said that one of the outcomes was “how can to cover Oregon it help me?”
While a Cover Oregon spokesperson said that Google Translate was just a temporary option, other solutions currently in place for neighboring states are also receiving harsh critiques.
The news source reports that on the Washington Health Benefit Exchange website, there are fact sheets available in eight foreign languages, including rarer ones like Cambodian and Somali. Amy Alexander, a member of an advisory committee that’s helping Washington’s Exchange reach out to low income and immigrant communities told KUOW that the translations are extremely poor.
Specifically, some used slang terms while other languages were far too formal and difficult for native speakers to understand.
This is where partnering with international translation services can be beneficial. Whether an organization needs translation services for websites or wants to ensure that paperwork for clients is translated properly, a firm that specializes in these matters is key. That way, there will be no confusion in tone, and native speakers will understand the product or service being presented to them.