OVERVIEW

Medepict is a system that alleviates language barriers in healthcare settings by leveraging visual language in place of traditional medical language.

To understand the problem of language barriers in hospitals I conducted interviews and surveys with the identified stakeholders: patients, healthcare providers, and medical interpreters. These interviews and surveys helped me to understand more holistically the issues that come from language barriers in hospitals.

Through my data analysis I was able to pinpoint some of the specific challenges / pain-points:

1. communication with non-english speaking patient before an interpreter is called (e.g. check-in)

2. quality of care / time lost when using the phone and machine interpreters

3. communication during smaller interactions when an interpreter wouldn’t be called in (e.g. using the restroom)

4. the patient’s ability to understand care instructions once at home

OUTCOMES

Through my individual ideation process and additional engagement with medical professionals I developed a 3 part solution for addressing language barriers in hospitals: Medepict.

The three parts include: Surgery Guide, Patient Basic Needs Key, and Home Care Instructions. The journey map to the right demonstrates how these solutions work within the actual patient journey. The section below includes more details about the individual solutions.