Evaluation of the accuracy and safety of machine translation of patient-specific discharge instructions: a comparative analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Machine translation of patient-specific information could mitigate language barriers if sufficiently accurate and non-harmful and may be particularly useful in healthcare encounters when professional translators are not readily available. We evaluated the translation accuracy and potential for harm of ChatGPT-4 and Google Translate in translating from English to Spanish, Chinese and Russian.

Methods

We used ChatGPT-4 and Google Translate to translate 50 sets (316 sentences) of deidentified, patient-specific, clinician free-text emergency department instructions into Spanish, Chinese and Russian. These were then back-translated into English by professional translators and double-coded by physicians for accuracy and potential for clinical harm.

Results

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SUBMITTER: Kong M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12252260 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature